Lassila steps down as Yale Alumni Magazine editor

John Dempsey

Kathrin Day Lassila ’81 in her office. View full image

After 21 years, 129 issues, and more than 30 industry awards, Yale Alumni Magazine editor Kathrin Day Lassila has announced her retirement, effective November 1. Lassila has edited the magazine, which is sent bimonthly to 135,000 Yale alumni, since 2003.

“Under Kathrin’s leadership, the Yale Alumni Magazine was transformed,” says Weili Cheng ’77, former executive director of the Yale Alumni Association and a longtime member of the magazine’s board. “Alumni reported that the magazine was more engaging, citing its expanded coverage and bold redesign. Kathrin’s editorial sensibilities have been a significant contribution to the alumni community.”

Lassila, a member of the Yale College Class of 1981 and a Rhodes Scholar, came to the magazine in 2003 from the Natural Resources Defense Council, where she edited the quarterly environmental magazine On Earth for eight years. “I started working with our small staff on April 1, 2003—April Fools’ Day—which I thought was very propitious: we’d have fun!” Lassila recalled in her column in the magazine’s November/December issue. “And we definitely did.”

For her first issue as editor, Lassila managed to persuade author Tom Wolfe ’59PhD to appear on the cover in his customary white suit, sitting on a stack of books, to accompany a feature in which famous writers described the books that changed their lives. (Wolfe’s was a children’s book called Honey Bear.)

In her first year, Lassila changed the magazine’s production schedule from a monthly, published eight times during the academic year, to a larger bimonthly. With the university’s financial help, she also arranged for the magazine’s distribution to be expanded beyond its previous base of Yale College alumni to include alumni of the graduate and professional schools. And she oversaw a redesign of the magazine by the eminent design firm Pentagram.

Lassila attracted noted writers to contribute to the magazine, including many alumni. In 2010, author Andrew Solomon ’85 wrote a much-admired article about a former roommate who had recently committed suicide. That same year, novelist and Yale writing professor Michael Cunningham contributed an essay about the symbolic significance of Walt Whitman’s eyeglasses, which are in the collection of the Beinecke Library.

Lassila took seriously the call in the magazine’s mission statement to “impartially explore the achievements, issues, and problems of the University.” In 2004, a feature by Emily Bazelon ’93, ’00JD, revealed flaws in the way Yale reported incidents of sexual misconduct; the article led to a federal investigation and changes in the university’s reporting methods. A 2012 feature by Richard Conniff ’73 recounted Yale’s involvement in the eugenics movement in the 1920s. And what looked like achievements to some readers were problems to others: a 2009 story about the history of LGBTQ students at the university, which featured the cover line “Why They Call Yale the ‘Gay Ivy,’” prompted an unprecedented outpouring of criticism and praise.

Paul Steiger ’65, former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and founding editor-in-chief of Pro Publica, has served on the magazine’s board during Lassila’s entire tenure. He says she has a “splendid way of editing and writing that keeps her readers connected to the twists and turns of campus life along with a historical context."

“It has been a long and wonderful run,” Lassila wrote in her final column. “I’ve teared up more than once whenever I thought about leaving my post at Yale. But  . . . it will be lovely to take a break, read more books, do some traveling.”

A search for Lassila’s successor will begin soon. In the meantime, senior editor Peggy Edersheim Kalb ’86, who has been on the magazine’s staff since 2014, will serve as acting editor-in-chief.