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“Celebration of the Century” will be the theme as Lafayette College welcomes back more than 1,000 alumni and their families for the 1999 Alumni Reunion this Friday through Sunday, June 4-6.
A special highlight will be the dedication of the John W. '39 and Muriel T. S. Landis Community Outreach Program at 4:30 p.m. Saturday in the Farinon College Center. John and Muriel Landis, who both grew up in Phillipsburg, N.J., have made a commitment of $1 million to the Lafayette Leadership Campaign to create a major endowment in support of the College's extensive program of voluntary community service. Lafayette students conduct more than 25 programs of sustained voluntary service annually. During the current academic year, approximately 950 of Lafayette's 2,200 students – more than 40 percent – contributed more than 33,000 volunteer hours to the community.
The annual reunion parade in Downtown Easton, Saturday at 11:30 a.m., will feature alumni and families, marching bands, classic cars, clowns and fire trucks. There will also be forums on the state of the College and volunteerism at Lafayette, a special reception celebrating 25 years of women at Lafayette, children's programs, a campus picnic, and many social events.
Alumni can also attend the annual Reunion College, Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Diane Windham Shaw, special collections librarian and College archivist, will speak on the Marquis de Lafayette, the French hero of the American revolution, at the Chateau Chavaniac. Named for the Marquis de Lafayette's birthplace in France, the chateau is the former Easton residence of the late Allan P. Kirby, Class of 1915.
A special reception celebrating 25 years of women at Lafayette will be held at the President's House at 3 p.m., Saturday, June 5, sponsored by Women in Leadership at Lafayette, an advisory committee of alumnae and friends. It will be hosted by Barbara Rothkopf, wife of College president Arthur J. Rothkopf '55, and Nancy Brennan-Lund '74.
The reunion features exhibits that are free and open to the public. Photographs of campus scenes by Kevin Worthen, assistant dean of students and director of student residence, are on display and for sale in the Farinon Center. Skillman Library has two exhibits celebrating Shaker design, culture, and craftsmanship. “Shaker Sketches,” pencil sketches by June Sprigg, Shaker scholar, author, and 1974 Lafayette graduate, are on display in the Skillman Library Reading Room. The library's lobby gallery will showcase “Shaker Scenes,” photographs of Shaker culture and architecture by Paul Rocheleau.
Prints from the College collection will be on display at the Williams Center gallery, including wood engravings by Warren B. Mack, a 1915 Lafayette graduate who taught horticulture for many years at Penn State University; and lithographs by Alfred Bendiner (1899-1964), whose caricatures of stage personalities appeared in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and Philadelphia Record.
Classes graduating in 1949, 1954, 1959, 1964, 1969, 1974, 1979, 1984, 1989 and 1994 are returning for class receptions. President and Mrs. Rothkopf will host a reception for the members of the 50-Plus Club, those returning alumni who graduated before 1949, on Friday evening in the garden of the President's House.
On Friday, a golf outing is planned for noon at Northampton Country Club, and the annual all-College reception and dinner will begin at 6:30 p.m. on the campus Quad, with a social to follow.
Saturday's events kick off with the Reunion Challenge Run at 8 a.m. at Alumni Gymnasium.
At 9:30 a.m. in the Children's Reunion Forum, Eva Graysel will lead alumni and their children in “Interactive Story Theatre” in the Interfaith Chapel, Hogg Hall. Also at 9:30 a.m., the Alumni Reunion Forum will feature one presentation on “The State of Lafayette Affairs” by President Rothkopf in the Marlo Room of the Farinon College Center, and another on “The Landis Community Outreach Program: Volunteerism at Lafayette” by Trisha Thorme, coordinator of the outreach program, in the Limburg Theater, Farinon Center.
At 11:30 a.m., alumni and families, marching bands, classic cars, clowns and fire trucks will be on parade in Downtown Easton. At 1 p.m., family members, faculty and staff will gather on the Quad for a picnic with games, music and entertainment, including a balloon-sculpting clown and a stolling magician.
A concert by the choral ensemble The Graduates will be held at 2:30 p.m. in the Williams Center. Campus buildings will also be open for visits.
Classes will hold individual receptions and dinners Saturday evening.
For information, call Alumni Affairs, (610) 330-5041.