Word: reunions
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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This new trend in Reunion behavior has been developing for some time. Edward A. Weeks, Jr. '22 spotted it back in the thirties, and commented: "It is no longer necessary to break three hundred glasses and fifteen windowpanes in order to prove that you've been college graduates for six years. Amen! Amen!, sigh the hotel proprietors on the Cape...
Today, the typical alumnus still takes seriously the result of the Yale game, still exhibits staunch Class loyalty, and still has a wonderfully wild time at Reunions (the Class of '31 plans to spend $130,000 on its 25th anniversary affair). He is likely, however, to know less about Harvard's football record than about its policy in regard to "Communist" Faculty members, to work actively on the schools or scholarship committee of his local Club, to consider just what educational principles he is buying when he writes a check to his Class Fund, and to stray from the Hasty...
...field of alumni fund raising it would at first seem that there has been no revolution at all. "GIVE!", the eternal imperative, still monopolizes the alumnus's incoming mail, especially as Reunion time draws near. The class of '31's 25th Reunion Bugle, published last December, failed to strike any radically new notes either in its headlines ("GIVE TO CLASS FUND NOW," "TAX ADVANTAGE IF GIFTS MADE BEFORE DEC. 31") or in the news story below ("The Class of 1931 has got to do some hustling between now and June...
With Class spirit no longer a strong selling point, alumni, fund raisers have had to find new appeals by which to build up their Class Gifts (which now amount to $250,000 by the time of the 25th Reunion). The result, as expressed by Pratt, is not the least significant change brought about by the alumni revolution...
...They're no longer trying to get the money by selling competition with other Classes. They've also thrown out the idea that you simply pay your fee in order to come to Reunion and relive your 'Bright College Days.' Instead, these days they're actually showing the alumni what goes on in Cambridge and selling them on Harvard College...