Long Blue Lines: Fall 2019

I’ll admit, whenever my phone rings and someone on the other end asks if I have a few minutes to complete a survey, my first instinct is to tell the caller that my mother isn’t home and I’m not allowed to talk to strangers.

When TP and I came to the decision that it was time for a reader survey focused on Marietta Magazine, for a split second I had an overwhelming and irrational fear of seeing 8,153 email responses of:

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…but then I remembered exactly who would be receiving the email — about 8,100 members of The Long Blue Line — and I felt pretty good about my chances for a positive outcome. This edition of Marietta Magazine addresses two very important surveys: the reader survey I wrote about in the spring; and the Great Colleges To Work For survey that more than half of my fellow coworkers were sent earlier this year (it’s the main feature; you can’t miss it). I want to update you on the results of the survey you helped with.

Bear with me, I’m about to throw some numbers at you.

We had 328 people complete the survey, and that total included 308 who identified as alumni, one current student, nine faculty members, six retired faculty/staff, 19 parents or other relative, seven non-grad alumni, and 117 donors. The magazine serves as the sole source of information about the College for 13.7 percent of the respondents, and 41 percent say that they get most of their Marietta information from the magazine. More than 78 percent prefer to read it in print and only 5.6 percent prefer online versions.

While nearly 46 percent say they spend 30 to 59 minutes reading the magazine, 7.2 percent say they throw it out immediately. More than 27 percent keep the magazine for more than a month!

Enough with the numbers — many of you provided specific comments that further explained your responses and some of you expressed concerns as to why we wanted the survey in the first place. We are not going to stop publishing printed versions of Marietta Magazine and we are not switching to a subscription-based mailer. We want you to receive your free magazine to learn about what’s happening on campus and what’s happening in the lives of alumni.

The majority of the survey takers want to see more class notes. We rely mostly on you to send us your updates (new careers, newly married, new baby, recent vacation, etc.), but we have also actively sought out updates via email and through social media. We will continue to work to expand this section, and we have added pages to each magazine to handle this content increase.

Many of you say you want shorter stories. The Journal section of the magazine is now comprised of numerous smaller stories. Some wanted no sports coverage while others say we need more in-depth seasonal coverage, so we’ll keep our Athletics to four pages and encourage alumni to sign up for free emailed updates of the sports you love by visiting: pioneers.marietta.edu/subscribe.aspx.

There are so many other great suggestions and comments that TP, Ryan and I have to think about — but we want you to know that we will continue to work to improve your magazine. Thank you so much for helping us!

Letters From Our Readers

Dear Editors,

I was saddened to hear of Professor Buell’s death. I had him my first semester at Marietta in the fall of 1971. He was kind, gracious and gave his students confidence. Because of him there was no doubt I would head to law school. He was great and throughout my time at Marietta, although I didn’t have him again, he always remembered me by name and would stop to talk every time. He was genuinely interested in his students. I believe his son Michael was in my class of ’75. Professor Buell did have an impact on my life and my thoughts and prayers are with the Buell family.

Michael Salnick ’75
Lantana, Florida

Dear Editors,

I like the look and feel of the Marietta Magazine, which just arrived. Always more pictures, the easier and more interesting it is.

I couldn’t resist sending this photo to you. I have the Pio stickers on the back of my computer, wear the hat around town, and have an MC chair from many moons ago.

We were sitting in the Delta Lounge in Fort Lauderdale when a person came up and asked if I went to Marietta. I was stunned that he would ask a question out of the clear blue sky; of course, I said yes and asked why he asked the question. He said he noticed the Marietta stickers on the back of my computer. He was a Marietta graduate from Dayton. We had a nice chat about how much we both enjoyed Marietta.

Had my hat on at one of my grandkids’ swim meets, getting a hot dog, and a woman asked if I went to Marietta. We had a great conversation as she said her husband went there and enjoyed Marietta and constantly told her about Marietta.

Hey, it’s a small world. Just never know when we will run into someone who is familiar with Marietta.

Keep up the great work.

Rich ’70 & Lynn Arnold ’71