1984: First Class

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