The has its first new editor in 26 years. Scott Allen, a former investigative journalist and editor at the Boston Globe who led the Globe’s celebrated Spotlight team, began the role on July 21.
Under Allen’s leadership, the magazine will maintain its long tradition of independence, guided by its , says , vice president of Alumni Relations, to whom Allen will report.
“Editorial independence is key to why the magazine is one of the most consistently read and trusted publications Dartmouth produces, and it’s why it can attract an editor of Scott Allen’s caliber,” Bascomb says. “Scott brings a wealth of experience in new and traditional media and is enthusiastic about ways to expand the magazine’s audience while telling engaging stories about Dartmouth and our alumni. I’m delighted to welcome him to the Dartmouth community.”
“The Dartmouth Alumni Magazine is one of the best college alumni magazines in the country. It’s the rare alumni magazine that people who’ve never been to Dartmouth would read just because it’s interesting,” Allen says. “Real journalism is being practiced here—and not just because the board includes real journalists, but because it’s independent, and its writers and staff are highly literate. Yes, they love Dartmouth, but they write and communicate about Dartmouth for a very knowledgeable audience.”
The magazine, which is printed six times a year and mailed to more than 65,000 undergraduate alumni, has been a medium for the exchange of news and opinions about Dartmouth and members of its alumni community since 1905. (Every issue ever published is available online in .)
Allen succeeds Sean Plottner, who retired earlier this year after serving as editor since 1999.
The magazine has “an incredible alumni base that cares a lot about their alma mater and actually reads and relates to stories about Dartmouth through a Dartmouth lens,” Allen says. “And there are a lot of really good writers and thinkers drawn from the ranks of the alumni. The fact that they’re excited to write for the magazine gives you this corps of talent that you wouldn’t have access to otherwise.”
One such writer is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and trustee emeritus David Shribman ’76, a former colleague of Allen’s at the Globe.
“Scott Allen is a superb journalist, of unassailable integrity, and a fine guy,” says Shribman, whose most recent contribution to DAM was . “This is a magnificent choice. I’m now even more proud to have a piece in the next magazine.”
Allen began his journalism career at Bowdoin College, where he majored in political science and was editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, the Bowdoin Orient. He enjoyed reporting enough to indefinitely put off an intended application to law school. Instead, he took a post-graduation job at the weekly Maine Times, where he spent five years running the statehouse news bureau.
In 1988 he joined the Quincy, Mass.-based Patriot Ledger as an environmental reporter, a specialty he continued when he joined the Boston Globe in 1992, taking a year-long leave to study biology at MIT and Harvard. He worked his way up to health and science editor and, in 2008, to an investigative reporter role on the Spotlight team, the Globe’s special reporting unit. He was named editor of the Spotlight team in 2014 and assistant managing editor for projects in 2017, leading a group of journalists whose work frequently won or was named as finalists for Pulitzers.
Allen also helped edit the Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
In 2023, he left the Globe to join Ballen Studios, an independent media company founded by his son, John Allen, aka MrBallen, a former Navy SEAL whose millions of podcast and YouTube followers regularly tune in for “scary, true stories,” Allen says.
“My son is a YouTube influencer. The first time he told me that, I literally had to ask him, ‘What is that?’ But he got so busy that he couldn’t really write all the material and find all the stories himself,” Allen says.
The experience was eye-opening. “I learned to communicate in a different way. The people who follow my son only do it because they enjoy it. They’re not doing it as civic obligation or because it’s on at a certain time or they’re in a particular group. They care about it. It really got me thinking about the craft of writing and how to engage people.”
As he returns to a more traditional journalism role, Allen hopes to use these lessons to expand the magazine’s online presence while maintaining what makes it special.
“I’m learning about the Dartmouth culture and the magazine, and I want to make sure that I’m a good listener while also talking about changes,” he says. “It’s going to be a fun and interesting challenge and one that I think is going to satisfy me in a deep way.”
Alec Casey ’88, chair of the DAM editorial board, led the search committee for the DAM editor. Of Allen, Casey says, “He brings a rich understanding of storytelling across many subjects and how to do it across both print and digital platforms.”
Allen plans to split his time between Hanover and his home outside of Boston, where his wife is a nurse practitioner at Massachusetts General Hospital. “My expectation is to be a very regular and meaningful presence on campus,” Allen says.
In addition to Casey, the search committee included current and former editorial board members Jennifer Avellino ’89, Abigail Jones ’03, Julie Sloane ’99, and Jamie Trowbridge ’82, and Kathryn Kennedy, associate vice president for communications.
