Members of the Class of 1961 marked their golden anniversary with the Tea and Remembrance Ceremony at Shady Shore during Reunion Weekend June 10 to 12. Pictured the next day at the Golden Alumni Society luncheon are, front row, left to right: William Ambrozy, John Baggett, Betty Baker, Frances Lefkowitz Bernstein, Caryn Dow Birchenough, Linda Mykland Blauvelt, Frank Bondellio, Melvin Bovee, Dorothy Graham Brining, Robert Brining, Eileen Switzer Clarke, Marion Brauner Covello, Mary Pidel Crawford, Diane Worthington Czajak, William Danehy, Linda Pollock Davis and Ellen Baldini Dowling. Middle Row, from left are: Philomena Camesano Mark, Ray Maraviglia, Charles Launsbach, Marguerite Giglio Larrabee, Carolyn Brown Krueger, Jerry Kranz, Judy Chengarian Koolakian, Sheila Pratt Khachadoorian, Pete James, Honey Friedman Goshorn, Dorothy Warren Gale, Edmund Frappier, Paul Fowler, Barbara Kelly Florczyk, Thomas Flaherty, Mary Gilmartin Fischl, Maria LaMotta Fay and Marilynn Nagy Farrar. Back row, from left, are: Matthias Mathewson, Joan Holland Meehan, Philip Messer, Marie DeJohn Miczan, Stephen Mizgala, June Bergendorf Nickla, Marbeth Hirsch Paulsen, Peggy Huntoon Podstupka, Pat Heafy Santoro, John Sapone, Judy Skillen, Edie Fiske Smolinski, Thelma Aa Taylor, Jytte Christensen Terns, Judith Johnson Tyler, James Vittorio, Sheila Block Weckstein, Stanley Weckstein and Elliot Yezer.

Remember all those days of waking up, checking in student after student, guiding them to sessions and then showing them Oswego’s campus?

Come relive the days of touring, touting and taking questions at Reunion 2012 June 8 to 10. Reminisce with other guides, guide yourself through all of the latest campus improvements and maybe even remaster the art of walking backward at a mini-reunion just for former Admissions ambassadors.

To receive information updates on mini-reunion events, please send your address, email or phone number to King Alumni Hall or drop us a line at alumni@oswego.edu.

For more information, visit oswego.edu/reunion or call 315-312-2258.

More than 1,100 attendees returned in 2011 for Oswego’s Sesquicentennial Reunion. They celebrated the 150th birthday of the college with good friends, great memories and some of the best sunsets in the world.

Reunion 2011 celebrated Oswego's Sesquicentennial.

Let’s make next summer’s party even bigger! Join your friends and classmates at Reunion 2012 June 8–10.

Everyone is welcome, but special events are planned for milestone anniversary classes with years ending in 2 and 7
and several groups. Watch for registration materials in the mail this spring.

Check the website for a listing of groups planning mini-reunions and for the most up-to-date information.

Former members of the Sodus Migrant Project gathered at Reunion 2011. They are, from left: Rita Ricardo Rodgers ’71; Nancy Jean Eick Labbe ’71, M ’95, CAS ’04; Nancy Blanchard Ibbs Soules ’69; Phil Toner ’67; Professor Emeritus Harry Nash; Lorraine B. Nash; Gail Shelton Tooker ’72; Maureen McGuire Parker ’70; Joann VanKirk Toner ’68 and Karen Visconti Holliday ’71.

The nearby Sodus Central School District found itself home to 320 migrant children, whose families worked the local farms and fruit orchards.

Few understood English, and the fluctuations in classroom size placed tremendous pressure on the regular staff.

Oswego Professor Emeritus of Elementary Education Harry Nash was contacted by his department chair with a somewhat unusual request: Recruit education majors to ride a bus to Sodus, stay the day and work with the children, and assist the full-time staff. For $25 a day, many Oswego students took Nash up on the offer.

In 1968, the program was redesigned to offer course credit and Nash was placed in charge of the newly created Sodus Migrant Project.

Nash and several of his former students in the project gathered to share some of their memories and experiences during Reunion 2011.

“With the migrant children, the classrooms were bulging at the seams,” said Nancy Jean Eick Labbe ’71, M ’95, CAS ’04, one of the dozens of elementary and secondary education majors who took part in the project from 1968 until 1972. Classrooms often had 36 or more children assigned to a single teacher.

“They would have not gotten the help they were provided if the college students weren’t there,” Nash said.

The hardest part for the students came when they developed a connection with the children for months, only to have them vanish, their families having moved on to another job.

“It was heartbreaking,” Gail Shelton Tooker ’72 said. “Around Christmastime I learned that the mother of one of the families had died when they moved back to Florida. I gathered up all these toys and sent them down. It got returned to me. I never learned what happened.”

SUNY Oswego education majors helped teach children of migrant farmworkers during the 1960s and 1970s through the Sodus Migrant Project.

After 1972, Nash left the project, in part because of the tremendous emotional ups and downs that encompassed teaching such a dedicated group of students. It continued for one more year in 1973 before disbanding.

“It was probably one of the better learning experiences I’ve ever been involved with,” Nash said.

— Keith Edelman ’10

net·work / [net-wurk]
verb (used without object):
to cultivate people who can be helpful to one professionally, especially in finding employment or moving to a higher position.

We invite you to join Oswego’s “Get Work Network!” With our ever-growing database of 75,000-plus alumni, your Owego alumni network is a powerful tool for expanding your cache of career contacts. The more alumni who register in our exclusive social network, OsweGoConnect, the more Oswegonians you can connect for job openings, career advice, mentoring and more. So I encourage you to log in and register today if you haven’t already! See the inside front cover of this magazine to learn how to join .

Likewise, our LinkedIn group (linkd.in/oswegoalumni) and our Facebook page (facebook.com/oswegoalumni) provide daily networking opportunities for Oswego grads. We invite you to take part in the frequent and lively discussions that take place. Volunteer to mentor a current student (or a recent grad) through our ASK (Alumni Sharing Knowledge) program — you can critique resumes, offer career advice, provide job shadow experiences, connect
them to internships in your company or link one of Oswego’s new co-ops to your business (see p. 3). The extent of your involvement is totally up to you!

Assisting our current students or helping our new grads launch their careers is one of the most valuable ways you can reach back and give a hand up to an Oswego student or alum.

Even though you can stay connected to Oswego through our many social and career networks and on the Web, we like to meet our Oswego alumni the old fashioned way — in person! We hope that you come back and see us soon in person to check out all of the amazing improvements to campus. The Science, Engineering and Innovation Corridor is rising before our eyes. Sheldon Hall, our “Old Main,” is undergoing extensive exterior renovations to take us into our next 150 years.

And even King Alumni Hall, your alumni “home” when you return to campus is a welcoming place to stop by, peruse yearbooks and alumni memorabilia and share your favorite Oswego memories — we enjoy hearing them all!

So return for Reunion Weekend June 8-10, 2012, come back to cheer on a Lakers team or visit for a theatre production or Artswego performance. We look forward to seeing you soon. And don’t forget to sign up for OsweGoConnect today!

Members of the Class of 1986 celebrated their silver anniversary with a reception hosted by President Deborah F. Stanley and Michael Stanley during Reunion Weekend 2011 at Shady Shore. Pictured front row, left to right, are: Jennifer Shropshire, Charles Barringer, Holly Logan Cox, Amanda Buvis Marallo, Sue Paczkowski Lallier, Michael Nelson, Kevin Gibson, Ann Frye and Tricia Johnson Carlton. Second row, from left, are: Sigrid Schlagowski Goltz, Terri Lehtonen Morgan, Amy Martin San Giacomo, Elizabeth Pennock Whitney, Stacey Antonino, Leslie Ofner Mandel, Beth Rapple, Karen Rosenberg and Christine Moller Mitchinson. Third row, from left, are: Carol Simiele Antonacci, Mirsini Papageorgantis Penfold and Alicia D’Aloia. Fourth row, from left, are: Tracey Chamberlain Higginbotham, Catherine A. Roberts, Jack Antonacci, Scott Higginbotham, Steve Fitzgerald, Michael “Schummer” Schum and Lisa Peck. Fifth row, from left: Lorenzo Augello, Joyce Levine Spiegel, Kim Wagnek and Donna Butler. Sixth row, from left, are: Nancy Pukalo DiGasso, Danny Clark, Barbara Segons Smith, Nancy Linnenbach, Patricia Fadden-Minnoe, Lisa Gourley Farciglia and Donna Masterson Nogid. Seventh row, from left, are: Karen DeMartino, Rick DiGassi, Michael Matteo, Mike Sheffer, Mark Carlinsky, Steve Frye, Paul Commerato and Adam Nendza. Back row, from left, are: Michael Poole, Eric Reid, Michael Broking, Andrew Kaufman, Kevin Wisely, Kurt Knudsen, Andrew Wagner, Gary Tidona, Tom “TJ” Jackson, Steven Glasser, Donna Lansing Metz, Peter Devine and Tom Ripke.

Edna found a framed picture of the Class of 1951 time capsule being buried in front of Sheldon Hall and she was pictured with those present for the ceremony. Edna joked that the time capsule didn’t contain any buried treasure. “There were no gold bricks buried there,” she said with a laugh.

Indeed, the capsule was unearthed for the class’s 50th anniversary in 2001. Herb VanSchaack ’51 joined the late Marion Green ’99, a library clerk with Special Collections, who created a display of the barrel’s contents, including such memorabilia as student ID cards, exam blue books, a Clio beanie and a little chalkware dog.