A new university magazine is hitting York newsstands and mailboxes this week, entitled YorkU. It’s slick, glossy and, its creators on the publications team hope, highly engaging.
Left: Cover of brand-new YorkU magazine
Here’s how editor Berton Woodward, York’s publications director and a former assistant managing editor at Maclean’s, describes the new magazine in the first issue:
“This is the publication that will showcase the University to the world – from the campus to the wider York community and beyond. It will be seen by students, alumni, faculty, staff, donors, parents and influential people across the country. With this impressive audience, our hope is that everyone is able to find a story about this great University – or written by someone connected with it – that they enjoy reading.”
YorkU is the successor to both Profiles, which was circulated to York alumni and friends, and Universe, the on-campus newsprint publication that went to students, faculty and staff. The campus will see YorkU every second month throughout the academic year along with a summer issue, five issues in all. Three of the issues, including this first one, will also go to alumni – a whopping press run of 160,000 copies each. Says Woodward: “We think that the York community, while broad, has enough common interests that we can all talk together in one place – this one.”
So what’s in the first issue? The cover story is a profile of alumna Natasha Ramsahai, the York-trained meteorologist for the new Toronto 1 TV channel and, until recently, for CBC Radio’s “Metro Morning.” There are stories about the double cohort, vision research and the harrowing experience of alum Derek Hatfield in an around-the-world solo sailing race. There’s also a pictorial guide to the new home of the Schulich School of Business. Up front is a section of shorter items called, yes, Universe, while near the back is a photo feature on York People. Best-selling humourist Will Ferguson, a York alum, contributes a guest column about naming a kid in the face of a very Scottish father.
Richard Fisher, York’s chief communications officer, says the key objective of the magazine is “to raise pride and interest in York University as an innovative, forward-looking, world-class institution.”
Its audience, he notes, is highly sophisticated. “In the spirit of fulfilling the strategic mandate for quality,” he says, “the new magazine will focus on providing the highest possible quality in terms of image, tone and content.”
Look for YorkU around the 15th, every other month during the academic year.