Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Celebrating Alumni at Ithaca College
By tara Lynch
10/13/19
Alumni Weekend is a time for reuniting, remembering and celebrating. This year alumni from across various decades and distances traveled to upstate New York to reignite their Ithaca Bomber Pride.
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Ithaca College hosted multiple events and meetings to recognize the alumni as well as the past, present and future of the institution. This year also featured anniversaries for on campus organizations and annual events.
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Among the various events, the Athletics Department inducted the 50th class to the Athletics Hall of Fame, President Collado hosted Brunching with Bombers and the Alumni Awards honored notable alumni.
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Many on campus organizations celebrated milestones. The Center for the Study of Culture, Race and Ethnicity (CSCRE) celebrated their 20th anniversary and the Afro-Latino Society and the Higher Education Opportunity Program hosted events respectively commemorating their 50th anniversaries.
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“It is just a great opportunity because milestones tend to bring people back to campus..." associate director for donor relations Jessica Fernando said. “A lot of the alums may not have been back to campus since they graduated, so this is a great opportunity for people to come back and see all of the wonderful things happening at Ithaca College.”
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The weekend is an opportunity to bring alumni back to campus to take a trip down memory lane and see how far they have come. It also serves as a reflection for the entire campus to recognize the strides the institution has made.
Longtime friends Ginia Anderson ’78 and Annette Larrier-Fulcher ’76 reminisced about their times here. They use alumni weekend as a way to reconnect with each other, after Anderson encouraged Larrier-Fulcher to comeback to campus a few years ago.
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“She started making me comeback because I lived here and I didn’t come back for a long time. Since she’s been coming up, she drags me up here and it’s good to reconnect and see how things have changed,” Larrier-Fulcher said.
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“A lot of our alumni have a great affinity for the college. They love Ithaca College and they love the chance to come back and perhaps show off everything they did here to their families and to meet friends they maybe haven’t seen in a few years…” Fernando continued.
Larrier-Fulcher (left) and Anderson (right) excited to reconnect during the weekend.
Both alumnae noticed the various changes to campus, including the tunnel from Phillips Hall to Dillingham. They remember walking outside in the cold Ithaca winters on a much smaller South Hill campus.
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“The campus has totally blown up, literally,” said Anderson. “The campus is twice as big as when we went here!” Larrier-Fulcher added.