Fireworks danced again this year for the roughly 3,000 UVA alumni and family members who came back for reunion weekend from the 10 classes invited. It was the highest attendance yet for the weekend, which brings back classes at five-year intervals.
While UVA has been graduating classes since the days of Jefferson, the official reunion died out with the chaos of World War II. It didn’t re-emerge until the early 1990s, and took on its current well-organized form in 1997—perhaps not coincidentally when UVA was scrambling to find funding after cutbacks from the state legislature.
Over 2,000 alumni and 1,000 family members attended last weekend’s alumni reunions. Even more showed up in spirit, or at least in the spirit of the wallet: 4,350 from the 10 classes comprising this years reunion invitees gave $23 million this year to the University.
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Donations this year from the reunion classes total $23 million in gifts and pledges. It’s down slightly from last year, though that’s largely because last year’s reunion classes included one particularly deep-pocketed alum, according to Christine Knight with the office of development. The most generous classes this go around are those of 1962 and 1977, which both brought in around $5 million.
One of this year’s tweaks to the reunion schedule is added events for children. “The demographics of the University’s alumni population are such that the majority of alumni are in the child-raising years, and so we are trying to be responsive to that,” says Jason Life, director of reunions and class activities with the Alumni Association. Events included a “Kids’ College,” complete with classes like “Groovin’ to the Beat” and “Make Some Noise: A Rhythmic World,” as well as a kids’ carnival and kids’ lunch.
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