When you arrive on Friday, head for registration at a small tent on S. Lorain St. between Finney Chapel and Wilder Hall. Our first activity that night will be drinks at 5 pm before dinner at 5:30 in the Heisman Field House (beyond Philips Gymnasium). For those who were at the 45th reunion, we had dinner there on Sunday night. There is a large parking lot, and shuttles will run between the Field House and the Hotel at Oberlin, where our reunion headquarters is in StudiOC on the second floor.
Friday night’s dinner in the Field House is a change of venue from what you may have seen earlier. Some of you have asked about protest activity on campus. Things are evolving, so check the Oberlin Review at https://oberlinreview.org for the latest. An encampment in Wilder Bowl has precluded setting up the big tent generally used on Commencement Weekend. Oberlin’s priority is the health and safety of our community. A recent Administration announcement stated: “Throughout this year President Ambar has supported peaceful protests on campus, so long as they did not involve hate speech.” Such has been the case with the encampment, as those involved and the Administration developed agreements by consensus on the use of space and showing respect for others.
Our goal for our reunion is to enjoy ourselves--listen to each other, engage in civil discourse and respect differing opinions. We are glad that Oberlin remains the place where we can share different points of view. We would regret having to ask someone to leave any session or activity, should such principles of civility not be followed.
Our 50th reunion weekend will be video free. No reunion event will be livestreamed or recorded. Nevertheless, please take plenty of photographs and load them onto our class website, NOT on other social media. We want our classmates and other session participants to feel comfortable to share their experiences and express their points of view, knowing that their words and/or images will not be taken out of context and posted publicly. Our website location for reunion photos will be available only to those who have registered and logged in.
Out of the many activities over the reunion weekend, we call to your attention two events in particular. First, our Friday evening post-dinner conversation about the impact Oberlin has had on our lives will be in StudiOC, our reunion headquarters, located on the second floor of the Hotel at Oberlin above the Admissions Office. Second, please join us at our Saturday post-dinner session in the Hotel at Oberlin ballroom with former president Bob Fuller on hallmarks of Oberlin culture. Come prepared with words and phrases that encapsulate what makes Oberlin unique. This conversation will immediately follow our dinner at which several former faculty and their spouses, including Jim Walsh, Nelson de Jesus, Grover Zinn, Terry Carleton, Bob Longsworth, David Egloff, Harlan Wilson, and Phyllis Gorfain will be joining us. They will be seated throughout the ballroom at signposted tables so you can find them.
Please bring copies of your books, music, and any other creative pieces for display in our reunion headquarters in StudiOC, where there will be a table for them.
Our reunion headquarters will be open throughout the weekend, and we even have a few rooms set aside for quiet time (some might call them nap spaces), so you need not go to and from hotels when you need some downtime. Look for a rideshare signup sheet for Elyria hotels, which will not be served by shuttles. There will be a hospitality center in our headquarters where we may add anything not provided by the College.
Oberlin’s Office of Alumni Engagement will be emailing you with lots of logistics information, including a link for a new app called Guidebook, where you can access the Oberlin Commencement and Milestone Reunion Weekend 2024 guide. It will have written directions, as well as video instructions, on how to navigate it. The app will have our schedule, campus maps so you can locate events, parking lots (for once you can park anywhere regardless of posted notices!), a public newsfeed for sharing posts with anyone who’s registered, hotel and campus shuttle schedules, including to and from Heisman Field House, plus much more.
Thank you so much for your generosity in helping us raise a great deal of money for Oberlin. The total to date will be announced at the reunion. All of your donations since 2019 have counted toward the total, as do pledges for future gifts and in estate plans. You can continue to make donations and pledges until June 30, 2024, the end of Oberlin’s fiscal year.
We are especially grateful to our Reunion Committee members who have dedicated countless hours and a great deal of effort over the past two years to planning our 50th Reunion and raising funds for Oberlin. Every member of this dedicated committee has made this an enjoyable process. When you see them, please thank:
