With a population of 116,000, Lawrence experienced a 16 percent growth spurt from 2000 to 2009. The city’s demographics are tied intrinsically to the University of Kansas, which had an overall enrollment of 28,718 students last fall. Almost 95 percent of Lawrence’s residents have a high school diploma; over half have a bachelor’s degree or higher. Professional and related occupations account for more than a third of all jobs in Lawrence, compared with 22.7 percent nationwide. The city’s housing market is strong, with a median value of $172,900, $50,000 more than the state average. In 2011, Parents & Colleges advice website named Lawrence (again) as one of America’s 10 best college towns, citing the city’s public art exhibits, the Lawrence Arts Center, Kansas River activity opportunities, and the city’s 50 parks.
Mark Sappenfield
Dear Reader,
About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:
“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”
If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.
But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.
The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.
We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”
If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
