Stanford's Reunion Homecoming opens Thursday

Thousands of Stanford alumni and family members are expected to attend Reunion Homecoming events this week. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

Nearly 7,000 alumni will return to the Farm this week for Reunion Homecoming, which opens Thursday and features a variety of events and programs, including Classes Without Quizzes, tours of new facilities, Dinner on the Quad, and a panel of faculty members talking about ways to address income inequality in the United States and around the world.

The Oct. 22-25 event, which also includes games and activities for children who register for  Cardinal Kids Camp, is expected to attract nearly 9,500 participants, said Leslie Winick, director of alumni and student class outreach for the Stanford Alumni Association.

Among the attendees roaming campus this year will be Merritt E. Cutten, who graduated with the Class of 1939.

President John L. Hennessy will welcome alumni back to campus on Friday morning with an address at Memorial Auditorium.

Following Hennessy’s speech, Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Hoover Institution, will moderate Reunion Forum: From Inequality to Equal Opportunity.

The forum, which is co-sponsored by the Haas Center for Public Service, will feature six Stanford faculty members discussing issues related to inequality, opportunity and mobility. They will consider questions such as, “What are the roles of our government, Stanford and each of us in building opportunity?” and “What policies can reduce inequality and renew the promise of equal opportunity for all in America and around the world?”

During Reunion Homecoming, alumni will be able to attend open houses at several new facilities, including the new McMurtry Building for the Department of Art & Art History in the university’s newly completed arts district and the Stanford Central Energy Facility and the six-acre Stanford Educational Farm.

The always-popular Classes Without Quizzes, which will be held each of the four days of Reunion Homecoming, feature Stanford faculty members exploring today’s most pressing issues and unveiling cutting-edge research. Alumni will have dozens of classes to choose from, including:

• Educational Neuroscience: Your Child’s Brain and Early Literacy
• Advancing Women’s Leadership: Blocking Bias at Work
• Why the Opera Changed the Course of Music
• Food Revolution: Solutions to the Omnivore’s Dilemma
• Confronting Putin’s Russia

Reunion Homecoming offers many opportunities for alumni to reunite with friends – and make new ones – at class parties, panels and mini-reunions, as well as tailgate parties before the Stanford vs. Washington football game on Saturday night.

Among this year’s class panels, which focus on stage-of-life issues, are “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Connecting the Dots Looking Backwards” for the Class of 2005 and “Living in the Now. Empty nests, Second Chances and the Search for Meaning” for the Class of 1980.

Tending to the spiritual sensibilities of alumni, Reunion Homecoming will feature two Friday events: Shabbat at Stanford and Alumni Reunion Catholic Mass. On Sunday, visiting artist Anna Deavere Smith will be the guest preacher during an Interfaith Service of Remembrance during University Public Worship.