Class Books

The early birds started to party on Thursday evening. The delicious buffet on Friday was a great welcome for the arriving majority. But the Saturday Dinner was the true culinary apex of the weekend.

The crowd happily visited with old friends, made trips to the bar and restrooms as needed, and stopped on the way to greet and catch way up with even more old friends.

The music program was very different from prior reunions … and quite successful. And the formal parts of the evening were short and very sweet, with recognition …

Class Program

A panel of ’69ers with some serious climate bona fides reported

• results from the class survey on our views of climate change (Tom Guterbock),
• a framework discussing timeframes for science, the public and the economy to react to the reality of a changing climate (Eugene Linden),
• the latest scientific reports on the extent of the damage so far (Skip Hobbs) and
• what we Boomers can do about (Wayne Willis).

A robust discussion followed in the Q&A. Click through on the links and resources offered by the panel.

Class Program

Our 50th Reunion Survey asked some probing questions about our collective approaches to spirituality. The 55th Reunion Survey sought to determine whether and how our beliefs have continued to evolve.  This presentation examined the spiritual state of our class, raised some questions about why it is and what it is, and presented some individual views and questions to ponder as we age.

Yale’s new University Chaplain responded to the presentation and compare our class to Yale today. Speaker: Michael Baum; Contributors: Michael Folz, Matthew Flynn; Respondent: Maytal Saltiel, University Chaplain.

Note: What leads to happiness?  At a session exploring this question at our 45th reunion (2014), we explored a longitudinal study of 268 Ivy grads from the Class of ’38.  This article recapitulates and updates those findings.  Spoiler alert: it’s all about relationships.

Editor’s Note: As we have room, I’m publishing stuff submitted at my request from reunion attendees.  Better late than never?

* Bill Simon

* Bob Levin

* Dave Rosen

* Dick Williams

* Jim Amoss

* John Waldman

* JP Goldsmith

* JP Jordan

* Lorenzo Wallace

We are still getting caught up on reports from the Reunion.  Here are some great candids from Clemmie Engle.                      

Editor’s Note: President Salovey sent a letter to the Yale community on Sunday May 31, 2020.  The full text of the letter is here.  Classmates responded with a broad range of reactions.

Fred Morris (JE) sent a letter, reprinted here in full.  Anyone else sending a letter to President Salovey can contact us; we’ll add it below and republish this post as “updated.” Comments welcome.