By Eva Erickson and Carole Braun
Ever since the Alumni Board’s official decision to move Alumni Reunion to October 2-4, from its usual time in June, Nonstop has been planning the Summer Alumni Festival, whose purpose is to both celebrate Nonstop’s accomplishments and to connect or reconnect Alumni with Nonstop. Much of the specifics of the Festival are yet to be determined, but the plan is to have work projects – such as painting a mural on the back wall of Millworks that parallels the bike path – dinners, and social events. The Festival is scheduled for the 18th through the 20th of June with hopes that the Alumni Board (AB) members will attend some of the events, since they will be in town for their summer meeting. The Alumni Festival could potentially sync well with the AB meeting, because it may have less time to spare in hosting visiting alumni. “The Alumni Board has already discussed having a very business-oriented meeting in June,” said Aimee Maruyama (’96), Director of Alumni Relations and Development. AB member Christian Feuerstein ’94 writes, “I would imagine that parts of our annual meeting are going to be Nonstop events, much as we did with our last AB meeting.”
Nancy Crow ’70, AB President, though hopeful that the Alumni Festival may bring more alumni to attend open meetings, is concerned that it may draw potential donors’ attention from the effort to get Antioch College back. “Calling the June event an alumni festival makes it appear as an alternative to the Reunion in October,” said President Crow in a subsequent telephone interview. It’s going to cause a tremendous amount of confusion,” she said. “We all share the same goal–to revive Antioch College–and we need to be strategic in our fund raising.”Crow would prefer to see the June event be framed as a celebration of what Nonstop has accomplished. Nonstop “carried forward the cause of progressive education,” she said.
