Class Notes Guidelines

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Class Notes features the personal and professional accomplishments of our fellow alumni. We honor and celebrate all the special milestones in your life such as advanced degrees, career promotions, weddings, birth announcements and more. We’d love to announce your news in an upcoming issue!

Class Notes must be submitted by your Class Secretary who will reach out to you prior to each issue of the magazine. If you have news to share and haven’t heard from your class secretary, send an email to [email protected], and we’ll make sure your class secretary receives your news. Before sharing your news, please refer to our Class Notes guidelines and FAQs below.

Class Notes Submission Form

Wheaton magazine is published annually each fall. Class Notes are also collected for supplemental publications to be shared in the spring and summer. Due to space limitations, we ask that you only submit Class Notes about yourself or fellow alumni. We are unable to include detailed news about family members or others with no direct relationship to the college. Many of our story ideas originate from Class Notes submissions. If we choose to spotlight your story in our magazine, we’ll reach out for more information.

Here are some other things to keep in mind:

Announce a marriage or birth after the fact only—we do not publish engagements
Babies are cute, but unfortunately, we don’t have room to publish photos of them
Be careful when sharing medical information or conditions
Please do not send in baby photos or family photos with only one Wheaton alum
Please avoid politics. This magazine is devoted to the Wheaton College community and not a space for political debate.

For additional information, please see FAQs for Class Secretaries and FAQs for Alumni below.

Update Your Information

All Alumni: We check every name mentioned in the Class Notes Submission Form against our database. If your name has changed since your graduation, we’ll only publish what’s in our system. To ensure your name, address and email are up-to-date, please send us your information to [email protected].

FAQs for Class Secretaries

When are the deadlines for Class Notes?

The submission deadlines are:

Fall 2025 Magazine: July 7, 2025
Winter 2026 Class Notes supplement: November 20, 2025
Summer 2026 Class Notes supplement: April 16, 2026

About a month before each deadline, you will receive a reminder email with instructions on submitting the notes. Many class secretaries send a mass email two or three weeks in advance of the deadlines to solicit news from their classmates.

What if I miss the deadline?

Email [email protected] for assistance or to make other plans for submitting your column. In selected cases, we can extend the deadline, but generally, we can’t guarantee the publication of Class Notes that are received after the deadline.

How do I get an updated address list of my classmates?

A class list request entails two simple steps: Sign the confidentiality form (if you have not already) and fill out the class list request form. Both forms are online:

Is there anything I shouldn’t write about in Class Notes?

In general, avoid news of forthcoming events, such as a classmate’s impending wedding, parenthood or career change. It’s not a big deal to report a classmate’s future plans to spend a few weeks at the beach, but it could be embarrassing or hurtful if we’ve written about a major life event—like a wedding or the birth of a child—that doesn’t occur as planned. Please share news of these events after they have occurred.

Also, use discretion in reporting news that came to you from secondhand sources. (“Joe Smith heard that Wendy Wheaton will be moving to Florida in May.”) In such a case, you may want to contact the original source (or the alumni in question) to verify the news. Also, if you write about an illness, be sure to be sensitive to whether that person wants to share that information.

Can I write about a pregnancy or an engagement?

Please wait until after the baby is born or the marriage has occurred.

May I include a classmate’s email address or telephone number in my Class Notes column?

In most cases, you should not include this information. One exception is listing the contact information (including email addresses and phone numbers) for Reunion organizers or class officers. This information is already published on the Wheaton website and thus is permissible in Class Notes.

It’s trickier when classmates ask to have their email addresses published as part of their updated news. In the past, we have occasionally allowed this information in Class Notes (“Winona Wheaton writes that she would love to hear from her classmates. Her new e-mail address is….”). But because we want to limit the publication of alumni addresses for privacy reasons, it would be better to say, “Contact me for Winona’s address.”

How do I notify the college of an alum or family member’s death?

Please report deaths to Alumni Relations at 508-286-8207 during business hours or by email at [email protected].

If a classmate reports a family member’s death as part of a general update for Class Notes, you may want to ask him/her to send an obituary to Alumni Relations Office. If the classmate has written of the death in a letter or email message to you, please forward the letter (or the email)—as well as the obituary, if you have one—to Alumni Relations.

How do I handle a classmate’s (or family member’s) death in Class Notes?

It’s fitting to acknowledge the death in your class notes, even if it’s just to include a simple message of condolence to the classmate or the family.

After the death is reported in the Wheaton magazine, classmates may write to you to offer an anecdote or favorite memory about the person who died. You are welcome to incorporate these sentiments into your column as you see fit and as length allows.

Something I wrote in my Class Notes column was changed. Why?

The magazine editor revises the columns for length, clarity and readability. Grammatical or stylistic changes (e.g., changing MA to Mass., or 2nd grade to second grade) are done at the editor’s discretion and are required for uniformity in the publication. Typically, you will not be consulted about these revisions.

Something I’m writing about hasn’t happened at the time I’m preparing my column, but the event will be over with by the time the column is published. How should I handle that?

Yes! Please email your suggestions to [email protected].

And if classmates share updates about a relocation they’ve made, but haven’t listed their new addresses, kindly ask them to report their most recent contact information to the college. Please direct questions about this document to [email protected].

I have an idea that I think is publication-worthy. Should I submit the idea to the magazine?

Yes! Please email your suggestions to [email protected].

FAQs for Alumni

How often can I send information for Class Notes?

Class notes can be submitted to your class secretary any time you have current or “new” news to report.
Share:

Your professional accomplishments, including a new job or promotion
Your academic achievements, including a new degree or certification
Your personal milestones, including marriages, births and deaths

Please limit your news to events that have happened in the past year, and note that the information you send may be edited due to space limitations.

Where should I send my Class Notes updates?

Send updated news to the contact information listed in the Magazine for your class secretary or send an email to [email protected], and we’ll make sure your class secretary receives your news.

I submitted something to my class secretary, but it was never printed. What should I do?

Try contacting your class secretary again or you can email the information to [email protected] and we will make sure your class secretary gets the news.

How do I submit a picture for the Class Notes section?

Digital photos: To submit a digital photo, attach it to an email message addressed to [email protected].

Click here for complete guidelines on taking and submitting digital photos.

For all photos: Please supply a brief description of the event and all the names and class years of the alumni who appear in the picture.

Please note: The photos you send to the Magazine must be sharp and clear. Photos that are out of focus, or that have harsh shadows, over-exposed areas, or “red-eyed” subjects, may not be usable. Often we receive more photos than we can use in any issue. When this happens, we will select photos that represent a variety of class years and timely events.

Whom do I contact to notify the college of an alumni or family member's death?

Deaths should be reported to Alumni Relations at 508-286-8207 during business hours or by email at [email protected].

If you have a personal remembrance or testimonial for a deceased classmate, you’re welcome to send those to the magazine or your class secretary. These sentiments will be incorporated into Class Notes as the class secretary sees fit and as space allows.

I have moved. How do I update my personal information at Wheaton?

Report changes of address to Alumni Relations at 508-286-8207 or send an email to [email protected].

I have an idea that I think is publication-worthy. Should I submit the idea to Wheaton Magazine?

Yes. Please send your suggestions to [email protected].

Can you help me locate a former classmate from Wheaton?

If you wish to contact a former classmate, contact Alumni Relations at 508-286-8207 or [email protected] or search for classmates on our networking platform, LyonsLink.

Please direct questions about this document to [email protected].