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On the morning of Saturday June 6, 2009,
while other reunion classes sleep in, the class
of 1984 will already be awake and on banks
of the Charles River. But alumni in town for
their classes’ 25th reunion will not be there
picnic or to laze on the river. Instead, they will be cleaning it.
In the Green-Up Volunteer Project, the class of 1984 will display its commitment to
the green movement and to public service in
what the 1984 reunion Web site calls a “reunion
tradition.” Twenty years ago, in 1989,
the class of 1984 was the first class to integrate pubic service into fifth class reunions, said Anne S. Holtzworth ’89, one of the five co-chairs of the Reunion Committee. Alumni went throughout Boston and Cambridge doing various volunteer activities with City Year.
With the Green-Up Volunteer Project, the
class of 1984 will be the first class to integrate public service into the twenty-fifth reunion, said Hortzworth. The Reunion Committee
has teamed up with the Philips Brooks House
Association and the Charles River Conservancy
Project to encourage class members and
their children (ages 10 and up) to help clean
the banks of the Charles. They will also offer
tours of the Blackstone Complex, Harvard’s
first Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design (LEED) Platinum building.
The Project also reflects the class’ latest
goal: making this the first Green 25th reunion.
Embracing the slogan “Green is the New Crimson,” the Reunion Committee is prioritizing environmental awareness in planning the reunion. Alumni are all encouraged to take Harvard’s Sustainability Pledge, use
biodiesel fuel buses, eat local foods, and limit their usage of paper and plastic, among many other initiatives.
In the planning process, the Committee has limited its usage of paper, mobilizing e-mail and Facebook. The Committee even plans to follow up with their classmates
in the hopes that they will change their habits
based on what they learned at the reunion to
offset the reunion’s usage of carbon dioxide
by next year.
The green initiative is just one of the many
“class firsts” that the Class of 1984 have initiated
in their reunions. The Class was the first
to have a memorial service, typically not held
until the twenty-fifth, as early as the fifth reunion
and in subsequent reunions.
The Reunion
Committee for 1984’s fifth reunion felt
that there was enough of a need and desire
for such a service and that the deceased class
members should not have to wait until the
twenty-fifth reunion to be honored. The class
was also the first to extend its reunion to Sunday
brunch, instead of having the last reunion
activity on Saturday night.
Many of these have subsequently become
traditions, and other classes have since followed
suit, making the Class of 1984 trendsetters
in the reunion-planning arena.
“We’re
quirky and socially conscious and innovators.
We tend to add our own flavors to things,”
said Hortzworth.
The drive to plan good reunions, even if it
means deviating from the standard Harvard
reunion program, stems from the desire to include
as many alumni as possible and to cater
to their needs.
“We have always tried to improvise and
make it a better program that reflects the time
we were in and what our class likes,” said Jay
G. Hooper ’84. “I think in essence it shows
that we have a class that cares about Harvard
and the world in which we live.”
If response rates offer some indication of
the planners’ success, then the class of 1984
has won, breaking a record for having the largest
class report with the highest participation
rate of about two-thirds. For this reunion, the
Reunion Committee is offering price packaging
plan different from others at the University,
including a weekend only package, in
order to make the reunion more affordable.
“The overarching goal is to create a reunion
that would attract as many of our classmates
as possible...we wanted to make it an as inviting
and accepting reunion as possible,”
said Reunion Committee Co-Chair Raine
M. Figueroa ’84. “I hope they will reconnect
with as many classmates as possible,
meet new friends, and have a good time. I
really hope they have fun.”
—Crimson staff writer Julia S. Chen can be
reached at jschen@fas.harvard.edu
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