Greetings Classmates,
The Great Class of 1975 has been very active – and the best is yet to come as we move full steam ahead into our 50th!
About 80 people returned to campus last May for our 49th Reunion. About 60 classmates and guests attended our 50th Reunion Kick-Off dinner on Friday night at the Nassau Club, and we had a great turnout for our pre-P-Rade luncheon on Saturday as well.
We are now busy planning the best 50th reunion ever – taking place May 22-25, 2025! Continue to check the Class website princeton75.org for information such as housing. To make sure you stay informed, you can update your postal address by emailing Alumni Records at [email protected] and update your email address through TigerNet. Watch for a letter from our terrific Reunions Chair Nikki Rosengren with details on how to sign up. Please contact Nikki directly if you are interested in helping.
For the last few years, ever since our virtual 45th Reunion, we have organized many virtual mini-reunions, coordinated by our wonderful Vice President and Zoom Mini-Reunions Chair Leona Brenner-Gati, and facilitated by our incredible Technology Chair and Webmaster Anne Brenner. These talks feature classmates willing to share their expertise and opinions with all of us. A wide variety of topics has been covered, from artificial intelligence to trends in psychiatry, and we have a full program for this year as well, on selected Sundays from 4-5:30pm EST. Let us know if you have any suggestions for topics you would like to see covered and/or you would like to coordinate a panel on a topic in which you have expertise.
We are also planning in-person gatherings! Scott Taylor is hosting a mini-reunion in Manhattan at 6-9pm EST on Tuesday November 12th . If you would like to attend, please RSVP to [email protected]. Additional mini-reunions are planned for Washington and possibly South Florida. Please email Co-Presidents Maureen Scott or Julie Raynor Gross if you would like to host a brunch/dinner/cocktails for classmates at your home or other venue. The class will subsidize the cost.
Classmates gathered in Princeton for Homecoming weekend in 2023. That tradition will be continued this fall with a gathering November 2nd at the Homecoming game against Cornell. Tailgate address is 242 Prospect Avenue. The start time for the brunch is around 11am with a game kickoff time of 1pm. We hope to see you there.
Last year, we implemented “flashbacks,” initiated by Skip Fox and written by a generous group of classmates, in which we share events that happened during our time at Princeton. We were delighted to continue our flashback writeups this year. Four are scheduled for Fall 2024 and five more in 2025; and going forward the Class of 1976 will be joining this program. The flashbacks have been fun to write and hopefully are making you nostalgic for all things Princeton.
A few other activities have been initiated in preparation for our Planned 50th Reunion are as follows.
A Book Club has been started by some of our literary classmates, spearheaded by Sally Spears and Kate McCleery! Watch for an email with details and respond promptly if you are interested in joining as those zoom sessions have a limited number of participants in order to facilitate conversation.
This past summer the Class of 1975 supported in part or in full nine student stipends through the Princeton Internships in Civic Service Program (PICS). 11 members of our class served as mentors to students working in Chicago, Pennsylvania and numerous remote locations.
Finally, our great class had a terrific year and raised $239,745 for Annual Giving (exceeding our goal of $236,000) with 409 classmates (41.5%) participating. A Princeton tradition for each class’s 50th Reunion is for the class to set ambitious “stretch” goals for both participation and the amount to be raised through Annual Giving. Our great class is no exception. Our goals for Annual Giving for the campaign year ending June 30, 2025, are 62% participation and $4 million. Our great Annual Giving volunteer team, led by Class Agent Skip Fox, Participation Chairs Mike Schiffres and Nancy Fox, Special Gifts Chair Carl Yudell, and Planned Giving Chair Lea Vaughn, will be reaching out to each classmate to seek a gift for this “major major” reunion.
In addition, under the excellent oversight of our Treasurer Jay Finkelstein, we also collected $16,918 in dues payments from 140 classmates (14% of the class) and remain financially healthy!
We hope that each classmate will look back and remember how much our experiences at Princeton, both inside and outside the classroom, benefited us in so many different ways over the last half-century. Plan to go back for our 50th to reconnect with classmates with whom you shared meaningful experiences, and forge new bonds with classmates and create new friendships!
75 Cheers for the Class of '75!
Maureen Scott ([email protected])
Julie Raynor Gross ([email protected])
