It was 9:30 a.m. and great to see that our clerks figured out the best way to post our Class and Forum banners neatly outside Kennedy Hall as I dropped off Lisa Barsanti Hoyt. Thank you Lisa for greeting and handing out programs to classmates, other reunioners, Cornell faculty and staff as well as the Ithaca community at our Class World Affairs Forum. What an amazing dialogue! Thank you Jeff Weiss for introducing all of us to these religious leaders and for giving everyone examples of worthy role models.

 

Following the Forum a bunch of us walked across the Ag Quad to the new Mann Library wherein we were greeted by its new director (and our classmate), Mary Anderson Ochs. There was no better guide than Mary to lead her classmates through the amazingly made-over Mann Library and explain to us all how Cornell’s libraries have changed in thirty years. Thank you Mary and congratulations on your new title: Director.

 

Our evening reception and dinner were on another made-over part of Cornell: West Campus. More mingling occurred on the three levels of the new Noyes Community Recreation Center where some classmates tried out the rock-climbing wall in between cocktails. A big thank you to our outgoing Class president Jeff Berg, for being the impetus behind our getting these new buildings, with their atriums, for our events. It was good for classmates to be humbled trying to find the newest of the five West Campus residence halls -- Flora Rose House -- for dinner.

We were honored to have President David Skorton and his wife Robin Davisson dine with us at Flora Rose House. Following dinner, Jeff Berg and Jeff Weiss presented President Skorton with the largest-ever 30th reunion check (not in dimensions, but in value) -- $10.597M, breaking the old record by $3M. President Skorton’s remarks were filled with gratitude on behalf of the University for the tremendous generosity of our classmates and for the extraordinary dedication of our class officers and volunteers who had just been recognized by Jeff Berg.

President Skorton also remarked that it was quite a treat to see Jeff Berg both surprised and not in control. Earlier at the podium, Jeff Weiss went off script on behalf of the Class Officers to present his soon-to-be predecessor with a Cornell University captain’s chair in appreciation for a decade of being President of the Class of ’79. A standing ovation from a dining hall filled with classmates was the show-stopper for our big day at Reunion.