Kudos to Maestro Chuck Schmitz for producing and directing a splendid 65th reunion!
Registration produced a cap, nap mask, and notebook, all adorned with the Y’60 calligraphy of honorary classmate Lynn Hanke. Thanks to the good work of John Bing, Yale memorabilia supplied by Doug Guiler, Vard Johnson, Jim Ottaway, and Tom Schaumberg were on display. We were reminded also to access at our website (yale60.org) those undergraduate vignettes, gathered from classmates by John Blanpied. There are over 40 of them, many hilarious.
On Thursday night, following a tour of the remodeled Peabody Museum, Dan Horowitz presented a talk detailing America’s history, Yale’s history, and his history over the past 65 years. The talk is on our website for all to read, behind the Classmates and Activities tab. Behind that tab also are two reunion submissions, the first by Lingel Hart Winters, “Our Legacy of John Hart—Yale’s First Graduate.” The second, by Conrad Cafritz, is titled, “Vincent Scully’s Despair at the Dysfunction Event in the Robert Venturi Jury May Day 1960.”
Friday’s lunch featured a surprise visit by the university’s president, Maurie McInnis, who extended a warm welcome. After lunch, what was to be a panel discussion on the old and new Yale, featuring Dick Brodhead ’68, former dean of Yale College and president of Duke, and your recording secretary, became a panel of one because of a Covid infection. Building upon the previous night’s talk, the major changes in Yale College in the 65 years between 1960 and 2025 were discussed.
After individual tours of the Yale Center for British Art and group tours in the Sterling Library, we gathered at the Gilmore Music Library for a presentation of the marvels of AI. At dinner, David Richards ’67, president of the Yale Library Associates, spoke from his research and book, I Give These Books, a history of Yale’s libraries from colonial times to the present.
Saturday featured a memorial gathering at the Giamatti Bench on the Old Campus, where we honored the bench’s sculptor, the late Dave Sellers, and recognized five class widows present at the reunion: Nickie Banbury, Mary Deegan, Mary Ellen Gillon, Susan Lee, and Carol Schaller. Members of the class executive committee read the names of 68 classmates deceased since our Covid-delayed 60th reunion in 2022 and a line from the poem “We Remember Them,” followed by “Bright College Years” led by Bill Weber.
The class meeting in JE following the memorial included awards to the members of the class executive committee for their service, and Peter Wells’s announcement that, after 20 splendid years as class secretary, he has passed the torch to Peter Knudsen. John Levin, co-chair of the reunion gift committee, announced that the Class of 1960 had now given over $100 million over 65 years.
The day concluded with a festive dinner featuring Whiffenpoofs Bill Finn, Bill Weber, Peter Wells, and ringers from other Yale classes. A great four days!
Tempus fugit, sumus hic.