Now you’ve done it
It’s a blessed thing to create a magazine at a school like Santa Clara—in spring and summer and fall and winter to assemble stories about people and ideas, matters of the mind and body and spirit, looking toward the future and learning from the past and offering something that, we hope, has a value and relevance and sizzle and electricity in the present. Needless to say, it’s a team effort when it comes to listening to the thrum and the rumble and melodies around us and coaxing them into words and pictures and drawings, and shaping the arc of the whole shebang on these pages.
Along with the crew at the top of the masthead, there is the rotating cast of characters who are our writers for the departments (Mission Matters, Alumni in the News, In Print) and the features at the center of SCM.Plus the interns who research and fact-check and, once they learn the ropes, have their bylines. Plus the copy editors who help keep our writerly ducks in a row. Plus our awardwinning photographers (a few of them this year) and wonderful designers who make sure those birds are showing off their plumage in fine form. We throw ourselves into this work with exuberance and we also take this whole business seriously, as do the University leaders, alumni, and scholars who devote their time to serving on the advisory board—which, by the way, is the envy of many a mag editor out there, and you wouldn’t see what there is to admire in these pages were it not for the vision and support that these folks have offered.
If you’ve admired the look of SCM on the Web lately—that would be at santaclaramagazine.com—the lion’s share of the credit goes to a pair of SCU students, Belinda Preno ’11 and Samantha Precup ’09, who redesigned the online vehicle this summer. They handed the baton to Christine Rasmussen ’10, who works under the tutelage of Web Manager Russ Morris Jr. And for the more-timely-and-user-friendly class note infrastructure, thanks go to a pair of wizards who re-engineered the mechanics this year: Brian Washburn and Tony Pehanich.
The foundation of the whole lovely Santa Clara Magazine project, though, is you, yourself, and ye. You’re members of the big community whose stories we tell here. And there are thousands of you who make financial contributions every year that sustain this publication: taking the time to go online and chip in a few bucks when you get the springtime appeal, or breaking out your checkbooks and sending us a note about what you’re up to or what you thought of the latest issue. Some folks can give in the hundreds of dollars, which is fabulous, but it’s equally heartwarming to see a check for $15 signed in a shaky hand. It would always be easier to do nothing. So thank you for making this possible. We hope you find some surprise and inspiration and delight within these pages. And, in tune with our theme of mentors, maybe learn something —about connections between Prussian statesmen and the NFL, mathematics and opera and financial advice, Santa Clara tennis and Harlem basketball.
Keep the faith,
Steven Boyd Saum
Managing Editor