Million dollar gift pledged toward alumni center
"We wanted to do something extraordinary for our school," declares alumni association president Michael Morris '63, who in October unveiled a $1 million gift to Campaign UMass for a new alumni center.
The gift was announced at a banquet launching a campus-wide flurry of campaign kick-off activities leading up to Homecoming weekend - itself unusually festive this year. "The alumni center, like this wonderful universiyt, will surely be among the best in the nation," says Morris.
A sketch by Springfield architect Stephen Jablonski shows the center as a series of Italianate additions to one of our handsomest surviving barns, a stucco-towered beauty opposite the new Mullins Center. According to outgoing director of alumni relations Virginia Rees '93, the generous new spaces will house office, conference, social, and service functions.
Rees adds that ample parking and easy access will make even pleasanter this "place to welcome our alumni back to campus." Morris concludes that the gift for the center "is a splendid opportunity for our association and its board to show this great university community just what it means to us."
See what happens when you hire a princess? Other people want to hire her too. It was just last spring we were able to announce that Ginny Rees '93 had been appointed permanent director of alumni relations, a position she'd held in an acting capacity since July, 1995. As of January she'll fill similar shoes - plus those of executive director of the alumni association - at Towson State University in Baltimore, a part of the University of Maryland system and the larget metropolitan university in that mid-Atlantic state, faved for its crabcakes and other charms, where many persons are alreay laying plans to visit her. "I'm starting a Baltimore club the minute I get there," vows Rees.
Place: Montague House. Date:
September 21, 1996.Purpose: UWW Reunion.
It might have been a '70s style love-in. It was. The story of UWW is 25 years worth of people committed to lifelong learning, and reunion-day tours of the Hadley Farm, Durfee Conservatory, Mullins Center and Conte Polymer Research Center became sunny moments for advisers and former advisees - most recallin the UWW experience as both challenging and energizing.
Instructor/advisers such as recently retired Ruth Hooke '88 Ed.D of Amherst basked in the satisfaction of over 2,000 graduates, sixty percent of whom have gone on the graduate school. Ed Harris '77 Ed.D, UWW's founder-director of 20 years, flew in from his current post at the School for New Learning at DePaul University in Chicago. Ed - whose advisees included Julius Erving UWW '86, the basketball hall-of-famer present in spirit if not in fact on this special day - was greeted with hugs and kisses by grateful grads and former staff. Current director Gary Bernhard '84 Ed.D. warmly greeted graduates and faculty, sharing pride in their quarter-centtury of mutual triumph. At an afternoon barbecue on Metawampe Lawn, dialogue focused on the future: on-line learning, the UWW web page, a Weekends-at-UWW program. Kate Koski UWW '89 and Elaine Anderson '85 M.Ed. '90 Ed.D., of UWW's Learning Center at Springfield Technical Community College, have 65 students this semester. "But," they say. "UWW at STCC is still one of Springfield's best kept secrets."
An evening talent show in the Cape Cod lounge, launched by director of alumni relations Ginny Rees UWW '93, featured an all-UWW lineup of current students, graduates, and staff. Steve McCraven's jazz group, Donna Hebert's fiddle and the banjo-playing of Diane Sanabria UWW '87 were terrific. Director Berhard's piano jazz lifted spirits all around. Gina Raposa UWW '95 sang folk songs. Luis Ganzales '95 played ragtime piano in his New Orleans-style black derby hat. Michel Florijn UWW '95 shone on jazz flute, Denny Dowd UWW '95 had the crown singing folk songs, and Chris Winter topped off the evening with his blues band - The Meteors - causing everyone to get up and dance like we were all 25, or less.
-Jim Cahillane UWW '89
