Emory Weekend
Alumni return to salute the
Class of 2007
Kingsized was the name of the band that headlined the Torch and Trumpet Soirée, the Friday night dance party that served as one of the signature events of the fourth-annual Emory Commencement Weekend, May 10 to14. And “king sized” is a perfect way to describe the crowds that attended the five-day campuswide celebration of the Class of 2007.
Exact attendance numbers won’t be available until later this summer, but the Emory Alumni Association (EAA) logged more than 4,000 individual registrations across the many events, which stretched from the Atlanta campus to Oxford.
More than in any previous year, the 2007 edition of Emory Commencement Weekend saw significant alumni involvement, and at nearly every event alumni mixed with graduating seniors and their parents, making for a vibrant atmosphere that crisscrossed generations.
More than eighty alumni attended a prereception to the Candlelight Crossover—a tradition born in 2004 during the inaugural Emory Commencement Weekend, in which graduating seniors cross over the Houston Mill bridge, candles in hand, from the Emory Conference Center to the Miller-Ward Alumni House. The crossover symbolizes the graduates’ transition from students to alumni.
Many members of the Class of 1957 were on hand—here for their fifty-year reunion and induction into Corpus Cordis Aureum—to welcome the new graduates.
Also lined up to greet the Class of 2007 was a significant group of 2006 alumni, many of whom crossed over the bridge last year. Their presence was visible evidence of the passing down of an Emory tradition from class to class. And how they coordinated their presence on campus was a nod to the twenty-first century—members posted an invitation on Facebook, the online social networking website.
Emory’s twenty-second annual Legacy Reception brought together not just generations, but families. Graduating seniors were presented with legacy medals by parents or siblings who also are Emory alumni, which brought not just lots of laughs and hugs, but tears, too.
Another get-together that brought long-engaged alumni to campus was the Judson C. Ward Consecutive Giving Society. Named for Dean of Alumni Judson C. “Jake” Ward 33C 36G (who once again led Corpus Cordis Aureum onto the Quadrangle during Commencement), the society honored some one hundred alumni who have donated money to Emory for twenty-five or more consecutive years.
One of Emory Commencement Weekend’s most significant successes was the return of Corpus Cordis Aureum. More than 110 alumni who graduated from 1957 or earlier were inducted into “The Golden Corps of the Heart”—the largest incoming class ever. And a breakfast that honored both new inductees and returning members numbered about 250 guests.
Many other Emory Commencement Weekend events also drew impressive crowds. More than 650 graduating students and their parents danced the night away to Kingsized at the Torch and Trumpet Soirée; around three hundred attended a champagne brunch at the Center for Women; and despite a midafternoon thunderstorm, 1,200 attended the Block Party
and Concert featuring singer-songwriter Pete Yorn on McDonough Field.
“The people involved, all of them, were friendly, welcoming, knowledgeable, and made us feel like it was their pleasure to provide all of us a memorable weekend . . . and they surely did,” said Barbara Reed 57N 79N, who was inducted with her husband Bob Reed 57C into Corpus Cordis Aureum. “I honestly cannot begin to say how impressed I was.”—Eric Rangus
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