EDITOR'S LET TER
Letter from the Editor
by Darby Campbell
MTSU magazine has long sought to educate, entertain, and inspire our readers. When I was tasked with heading up the alumni magazine redesign, I thought about how we could create more valuable content for our readers. I’m an MTSU alumna, employee, current graduate student, child of an alumnus, and parent of a freshman (Hi, Dad and Aurora!). MTSU has been my home for the past decade. So when we asked “How can we better serve our alumni community?”, I thought about all of the people I’ve known in my time here—all of the cherished classmates, brilliant and committed faculty and staff, and spectacular alumni I’ve met who have astonished me. We hope that this new MTSU magazine will offer a better user experience, be helpful, be useful, and most of all serve as an invitation to connect with the larger MTSU community—alumni, students, staff, faculty, and the middle Tennessee region.
Micah Loyed
In his fall address to faculty and staff, MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee outlined Quest for Success 2025 goals to further incorporate MTSU into the surrounding Murfreesboro community and encourage business partnerships and career development with Nashville. Both are missions we strive to support through a greater connection between the alumni and the current student body—along with the goals of helping learning go beyond graduation and encouraging civic-minded, responsible citizens. He urged us to think big, bold ideas. We were asked to innovate, to be the architects of tomorrow. This conceptual and aesthetic redesign is our way of answering this call. As a kid, I always imagined what the year 2020 would look and feel like. The visual
redesign effort was a cooperative effort with Micah Loyed, designer extraordinaire (and also an MTSU graduate). It was our goal to give the new MTSU magazine a smart, artistic, clean, and modern look with user-driven organization. We are introducing new pages! Scene on Campus is a photo collage of events that took place on campus since the last issue. Events is an invitation to a sampling of the art, alumni, athletics, or lecture events open to all alumni. #MyMTStory is a page where we share your comments from social media. Old School, a photo spread from our archives, will feature a look back at MTSU’s past. Ask an Expert offers a thoughtful response on a current issue or point of interest. Required Reading lets you know about the wealth of books being published by MTSU alumni, faculty, staff, and students. Likewise, the new art pages, Campus Culture, show off the abundance of talent from visual artists and writers from MTSU. Lastly, we can’t help but brag a bit with our Faculty Spotlight showcasing one of MTSU’s leading professors. Don’t worry, the familiar staples like Midpoints and Class Notes haven’t gone anywhere. They just have a new look! It is my hope that we can help connect the current student body with alumni and to help alumni feel like you are still members of the MTSU community after graduating. Money isn’t the only way alumni can give back; mentorship is valuable. It is this magazine’s goal to help you foster a connection with MTSU, whether that is through attending events, mentoring a student or offering them an internship, hiring MTSU alumni, or just staying in touch by interacting with our online community. We want to hear from you.
Winter 2020 5
