The recent passing of Charles Reich and an experience in Claudia Rankine’s poetry seminar during our 50th Reunion a few weeks ago prompt these thoughts.
The Charlie Reich seminar of which I speak actually occurred in the law school, but undergraduates had the run of the campus, and it was widely attended by them.
When our class of ’69 arrived at WYBC, the big attraction for many of us was hosting rock and soul shows on WYBC 640 AM, closed circuit to the Yale campus. Over the spring break of our freshman year, though, we who heeled WYBC helped build a new state of the art stereo FM studio…
Charles A. Reich, who as a 42-year-old Yale Law School professor swapped button-down Brooks Brothers shirts for hippie beads and vaulted to intellectual celebrity by venerating the counterculture in his manifesto, “The Greening of America,” died on Saturday in San Francisco. He was 91.
Had any of us been thinking 50 years ahead as we graduated, we probably would not have guessed that one of the defining issues of the next half century would be the challenging relationship between people and the planet. It turned out that 1969 marked the beginning of what is commonly thought of as the…
Several discussions at our 50th Reunion touched on two memorable themes from our senior year: the Black Power movement and the football team. These themes intersected in historic fashion at the Dartmouth game at Yale Bowl on November 2, 2018, when our two black cheerleaders stood at the front of the cheerleading squad during the…
The ClassBook was a big hit, with the accent on big! Over 800 pages, 8 pounds, 530 personal essays, obituaries, and 12 longer essays offering broader, deeper looks at our experiences over the past 50 years. Yet, sadly mistakes were made.
John Waldman was one of the first classmates to submit his essay online, and yet, …
Everyone Contributes – Let’s Document What Just Happened.
We need to document what happened at the reunion, mainly for the many classmates who could not attend for medical or other good reasons. Volunteers are writing up reports on events like Classmates In Concert and the Class Survey presentation. But we need MORE of you to volunteer and help document the …
The final numbers are in from the YAA, and Silliman outpaced everyone, holding off late surges by Morse and Branford. Final results (classmates attending divided by living classmates per college):
My contact with a broad swath of Yale ‘69 preparatory to our 50th revealed widespread unease with what Yale now appears to “be.” This disaffection was repeatedly invoked as the source of decisions not to attend the Reunion – prompting our Reunion Committee to assert that the Reunion would be about renewing connections between classmates,…
Editor’s Note: Bill Newman was one of the reunion co-chairs. For so many classmates who attended our reunion, the event was a beginning for us and even more so a celebration of that beginning. We collectively kicked off a new phase for the Class, one where there are new friends, and we rekindled old relationships. …
YALE UNIVERSITY has elected its first-ever black student body president.
Kahlil Greene is the first black person appointed to the role in the prestigious university’s 318-year history.
As the president of the student body, Greene will be responsible for addressing issues faced by undergraduates on campus.
Classmates, Those of you who attended our reunion dinner heard me interrupt Steve Schwarzman’s rambling, self-aggrandizing talk by shouting, “That’s enough Steve: You’ve dispossessed tens of thousands of people out of their homes…” Undoubtedly I should have risen magisterially from my seat and addressed a few more temperate but still-critical words to him and the…
Don’t pack that 8-pound ClassBook for the Reunion! First, we’ll have some copies in the Davenport Common Room. And second, all of the essays are now online.
If you want to read anything in the ClassBook, just whip out your phone/tablet/laptop, log in to Yale1969.org, type the name into the search bar at the top, and proceed. If you want to see your essay online, just go to your profile page. It’s linked there under …
![Reunion: Everyone’s A [Photo-]Journalist!](https://yale1969.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/selfie-300x245.jpg)
Hey, after the reunion, Yale1969.org will publish pictures, reflections and memories captured at the reunion. So, if you attend, please take pictures! If you get some good ones, please send them to us. (Attach a note with the names of any people in the pictures.) See below for tips and how to send them. Even…
As the organizer of the Reunion Book Exhibit in Sterling, I had an epiphany: Yale trained us to write. Some of us write as a career. Some write only for the love of it. These days, we’re at a point in life where we SHOULD be using our writing skills to advance our life’s loves. Here are some examples that will inspire you.
The Reunion Committee wants you to have the latest/greatest info on transportation, housing, weather, an updated copy of the program, etc.: Connecticut Limousine, RIP. For those of you planning on using Connecticut Limousine (vans) to get from NYC airports to New Haven, you’ll have to make other plans. They just went out of business. Here…
