Latest Information About the 55th Reunion
- Online registration for the reunion events & on-campus housing will “go live” very soon — hopefully by later next week. We’ll blast a special email to everyone when it’s ready.
- The Class Survey is getting a solid response; if you have yet to take it, click here.
- The Class-only and Yale-wide programming is coming together; see details below.
- The Class Dinner will host a new musical format; see this story.
- See below for links to all the FAQs and resources you’ll need for a great weekend.
Our 55th reunion (May 30-June 2). is shaping up very well. Be there! Here is what you need to know now:
Registration
The Alumni Office hopes to open registration for our 55th reunion during the week of March 18. Please watch for an email from YAA. We will also distribute a newsletter alert when the registration goes live. Please register as soon as your planning allows. As before, you will be able to register for the whole weekend or just part of it.
Your classmates want to see you, and of course, you want to see them. Yale’s surveys have consistently shown that the #1 reason that people come to reunions is to see each other. The advantage of registering early is that it will enable Yale to generate the “Who Is Coming” list. If you say you are coming, your friends are more likely to do so too.
Timothy Dwight Is Reunion HQ
As we have already announced, our headquarters will be in Timothy Dwight College. We will sign in there and have our meals under a tent in the courtyard. If you plan to stay in TD, you will be able to make a reservation at the same time as you register for the reunion. Yale is doing its best to make the process easy.
If you wish to stay in a hotel and you have not already made a reservation, you will find the most up-to-date information regarding 2024 Yale reunion hotel room blocks on the Housing & Hotels web page.
Class Survey
The class survey is live and many of you have already taken it. If you have not already done so, please complete the survey by visiting: https://www.coopercenter.org/yale69.
Our classmates who authored the survey, Tom Guterbock and Mike Baum, have been gratified by the positive response. The questions are fun. The survey is completely anonymous. Neither Tom nor Mike will be able to find out how you responded.
The results will be compared to the successful survey we took five years ago and will be reported in the opening class discussion on Thursday afternoon at our reunion. They should help us know ourselves better and provide grist for our conversations during the weekend. An innovation this time is that the results will also be discussed in at least two of our other formal class discussions, focusing on wellness in our 70’s and beyond, and environment/energy.
Class-only and Reunion-wide Programing
A major highlight of Yale reunions for many people is the series of discussions organized by and for our class, and outstanding lectures by professors that Yale makes available for all returning alumni.
We will be able to announce details in the near future, but we can say now that our class-only discussions will focus on topics that are diverse, forward-looking and exciting. We will lead off with a discussion of our class survey and then talk about the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on our lives, new Yale research on wellness in our 70’s and beyond, environment/energy, and the future of liberal education. We will hold our traditional Memorial Service on Saturday afternoon in Battell Chapel.
Yale is also organizing tours of spaces such as the Schwarzman Center and the new Colleges and is organizing receptions for several cultural centers and shared interest groups. As President Peter Salovey plans to step down after this academic year, his “Update” will most likely be in the form of a “Farewell Address.” The always enjoyable Celebration of Yale Singing will close out Saturday afternoon.
Saturday Evening: Class Dinner and A Little Night Musi
We will have our sit-down class dinner on Saturday evening. When we finish dessert and while beverage service continues, we will have musical entertainment by some of our classmates. See the accompanying article, “Second Call: All Classmate Musicians, We Want To Hear You Perform.”
As previously announced, in response to multiple requests by classmates who want to be able to hear each other, we will not hire an outside band!
Reunion Giving
Our 55th Reunion Gift Co-Chairs, Woody Collins, Howard Newman, Steve Schwarzman and Ken Wolfe, have started contacting us about this initiative. Our class has a proud tradition of supporting Yale’s priorities and excellence, a tradition that we will continue. Thank you for contributing!
Other Resources
The alumni office has created a website for our 55th reunion, updating it with official information as it becomes available. You can find it at https://alumni.yale.edu/reunions/class-1969. The Yale website with general information about all reunions is at: https://alumni.yale.edu/reunions/yale-college-reunions.
Questions and Suggestions? Please write to us at reunion@Yale1969.org.
WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU!
– Derry and Bill
Classmates, I regret that I’ll have to be in Europe (at a conference with my wife) during our reunion. Bill Newman and I had talked about my being part of a panel on the future of liberal education. As most of you know, I taught Yale undergrads from 1999-2020, and, even in absentia, I’ll have at least the following contribution to such a discussion — an interview that I did on the future of liberal education almost a decade ago for the Carnegie Council. It was a really good podcast, so I’m glad to share it, both audio and transcript. I briefly discuss three “faces” of liberal education and, at one point, I say a few things about — okay, against — Yale’s joint venture with Singapore, which was still up and running at the time.
Here’s the link: https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/media/series/eia/20150615-an-interview-with-jim-sleeper-on-the-future-of-liberal-education
I’ll be glad to have any comments, however scathing, and I’ll very much miss re-connecting this May.
THE JOURNAL OF CARNEGIE COUNCIL
FOR ETHICS IN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
SUMMER 2015 (29.2) • INTERVIEW