Uppers' Subscriptions to The New Yorker Come to an End

In recent years, the English department has worked to expose uppers to high-quality and diverse analytical writing through a free year-long subscription to The New Yorker. The weekly magazine contains a mix of social and political commentary, cartoons, poetry and fiction; some English instructors used it as a basis for class discussion, while others allowed students to use their copies however they pleased. But to remain mindful of the department’s budget, the all-grade subscription was canceled and teachers were given the option to arrange for e-subscriptions instead.

“When we initially purchased the subscriptions for students, it cost us less than 60 cents an issue per child. Last year, The New Yorker upped its student rates to $1 per issue,” former English Department Chair and instructor Lundy Smith explained. Because of the uptick per issue, the department faced a cost that far exceeded its budget. After conversations took place among Smith and the Academy CFO, teachers and librarians, it was determined that because of price hikes and the fact that not every teacher used the magazine, the program was to be discontinued. “We no longer felt it was prudent to purchase subscriptions for every upper,” Smith said. 

According to current English Department Chair Ellen Wolff, the tradition of providing the annual subscription stemmed from the Reporter at Large (RAL) assignment, which asks that students produce a long piece of non-fiction writing, in most cases a journalistic profile.

Because the RAL assignment has long been a part of the upper English curriculum, many teachers had thought it useful to provide all students with access to The New Yorker so that they could better understand the style and format of writing the RAL asked them to emulate.

“The upper year [RAL] assignment was put in place years and years (and years!—long before my time) ago, modeled on the ‘Reporter-at-Large’ pieces in The New Yorker. Over the past few years, the English Department has been playing around with different approaches to the Reporter-at-Large assignment,” Wolff wrote in an email, describing the subscription’s origins.

“A bunch of teachers thought it would be interesting to teach the RAL with the help of things students could read in The New Yorker,” Wolff continued. “We are always experimenting with new texts, new assignments, new approaches and the decision to order the subscription emerged out of this spirit of experimentation.”

Now, according to Smith, students must purchase their own online subscriptions of the The New Yorker. Or, if a teacher wishes to utilize the magazine in-class and distribute PDF copies to their students, the English department will cover the cost of his or her subscription. Additionally, students can access the Academy’s library subscription through the library’s online resources.

Students had mixed reactions to the change. Some uppers were disappointed by the news, saying the complimentary delivery subscription was an opportunity they were excited to take advantage of.

“I’m really sad that we’re not getting [The New Yorker],” upper Bokyoung Kim said. “It was literally the one thing I was looking forward to for upper year.”

Upper Evan Xiang shared similar thoughts, saying it was a tradition that she, too, had looked forward to. “I really liked reading my sister’s old copies of The New Yorker that she collected over the year, and I’m sad that I won’t get the same opportunity,” she said.

She also added that the tactile benefit of a print subscription was significant. “It was a great way to read a collection of interesting articles on actual paper for a change.”

Another upper, Antigone Clark, acknowledged the cancellation of the subscription as a reasonable decision.“I can understand the decision to stop the subscription to The New Yorker for uppers due to the fact that we’re pretty busy and a lot of us don’t read them,” Clark said. But she also realized what students are losing from the discontinuation of the program.

“By taking away that subscription, they’ve taken something of great value,” Clark said. “Even if someone doesn’t read the entire magazine, they’re gonna at least look at the headlines. And that’s what draws us in to learn and become invested in topics outside of the classroom.”

Many other students, however, were more indifferent and understood the decision from both a financial and practical standpoint.

Upper Bliss Perry said that while he would have enjoyed receiving the magazine in his P.O. box every week, he “was not too concerned” because he probably would not have had enough time to sit down and read it fully. “I already subscribe to a few other magazines and, admittedly, I usually don’t get through all the material each week,” he said.

“Considering the large piles of discarded The Exonian I see in Agora, Grill and P.O. every Thursday, I would think that even fewer students would read The New Yorker,” Perry added. “Thus, it was probably a smart choice, financially, for Exeter to discontinue the subscriptions.”

Teachers, too, had varying reactions to the change. Many were surprised and said that they were unaware that the subscription had been ended.

English instructor Becky Moore was one of the teachers left in the dark. She added that she had made use of the magazine in her class every week, assigning a pair of students to read the whole issue and chose several articles they found useful for discussion. They would then assign those articles to their peers for homework and lead them in discussion during the subsequent class.

English instructor Todd Hearon also did not receive notification of the cancellation, though he did not use the magazine as a part of his class.

Although English instructor Brooks Moriarty only used the magazine sporadically, he said that it was useful for his classes to have the magazine at their disposal as a text. He used it mostly as a source of models, a collection of profiles and journalistic pieces his students could “break down to understand what made them tick.” But he noted that teachers couldn’t count on the publication to deliver content that allowed them to work most effectively in class week in, week out.

Moriarty recognized the potential that The New Yorker had in starting conversations around campus.

“It had the potential of creating community around a common experience—reading from it,” Moriarty said. “Even if students weren’t studying it in class, there was the possibility that students could be sitting around the lunch table having conversations like, ‘Did you read that article about…’”