Dear classmates —
Our 45th Reunion was a ball! 133 classmates and 45 family members and friends gathered for four days of attending stimulating programs, reminiscing with old friends, eating great food, and enjoying the excellent (seriously!) weather.
In this letter:
- Recap of our Reunion campaigns
- Special event for Class of 1973 dues payers: A talk on the Firesign Theater
- A memorial and remembrance of Jon Kaplan
- An interesting volunteer opportunity for the right people
- Have you read the Cornell Alumni Magazine lately?
- Upcoming events: Homecoming Tailgate for the ’70s
Recap of our Reunion campaign
Thanks to our Cornell Fund chair, the late Jon Kaplan, and co-chair Wayne Merkelson, and their committee, the class set a 45th Reunion record of 99 Tower Club members. Overall, we had 566 contributors at all levels, and raised $11,740,644. Thank you to all of you who donated at any level!
Special event for class dues payers: A Firesign Theater webinar
Are you a Bozo? Or perhaps a Zip, Boogie, or Beaner? Did you follow the adventures of Nick Danger, Mark Time, or Hemlock Stones? Or enjoy George Leroy Tirebiter movies like “High School Madness” or “Parallel Hell”? If so, we have a special treat for you! The Class of 1973 is sponsoring a webinar this fall by Jeremy Braddock, associate professor of English at Cornell, who will speak on the book he is writing about the Firesign Theater. This webinar will be open to dues payers of the Classes of 1967 – 75 (the years during which the FST flourished).
This all came about because I read a story in the spring about Prof. Braddock’s being named one of the two inaugural Milstein Fellows (see the description of the Milstein Program in Technology & Humanity, endowed by classmate Howard Milstein). The story mentioned Prof. Braddock’s interest in the FST ands that he is working on a book about it. As undergrads, I and my friends spent hours listening to and dissecting their albums. (Did you know there were public FST listening parties at the Straight?) It occurred to me that ’73 classmates, as well as those in neighboring classes, might be interested in Prof. Braddock’s research. He’s interviewed all the FST members, had access to their archives, and has done a podcast on their work.
We plan to do this webinar sometime in November or December. We’ll announce the exact webinar date via email and the cut-off date for dues payers. Just prior to the webinar, we will email a link to the webinar to all dues payers. If you haven’t paid your class dues yet, you can do it here. If you need to update your email address, click here to do it.
Jon Kaplan: Serving the Class for 45 years
Cornellians of many classes were stunned and grieved on February 20 to learn that Jon Kaplan ’73, MBA ’74, had been struck and killed by a speeding driver the previous day. Jon was engaged in one of the 100- and 200-mile bike rides he so enjoyed.
Jon was one of the most dedicated Cornellians any of us ever knew. He was an organizer of the Senior Class campaign in 1973, and for the next 45 years was the Class of 1973’s Cornell Fund representative. From 1983 – 93, Jon was our Class president. He served several terms on the Cornell University Council, where, as vice president, he helped launch the Ambassador program to encourage Council members to give informal updates on University priorities and programs to formal and informal alumni gatherings.
Jon was a nonpareil fund-raiser and friend-raiser. He led the class to numerous Reunion Tower Club records, including the 45th Reunion record mentioned above. One theme comes across clearly in talking to many people who knew and worked with Jon. He cared about people, regardless of whether you could afford $5 or $500 or
$50,000. He knew that if someone gave $5 or $50 regularly, that person might give a lot more if and when they were able to do so. And if in the meanwhile the alum stayed connected to Cornell — coming to campus, attending Reunion or CALC, participating in class or club or affinity activities — that was Jon’s real goal. To that end, Jon recruited many people to be Cornell volunteers, myself included, some 30 years ago.
Because of Jon’s unique, long-standing, continuous service to the Class of 1973, the officers and class council decided to make two gifts in Jon’s memory. The Class of 1973, as a class, endowed the support of a tree in the Cornell Botanical Gardens. We held a small dedication there during Reunion, which you can see a bit of here (thanks to Joan Spielholz, class historian, who made the recording). The officers and council also made a personal gift to create a bike rack on campus. To our surprise, the Cornell Fund staff matched our gift in order to create a larger bike rack. If you’re on campus, it’s at the northeast corner of Sage Hall, just down from Day Hall and across from the Statler on East Avenue.
An interesting volunteer opportunity for the right people
In January 2017 I was a technical mentor at the world’s first Animal Health Hackathon, co-sponsored by the College of Veterinary Medicine and Entrepreneurship@Cornell. One of the most uplifting experiences of my life was seeing 150+ students ranging from freshmen to third-year vet students, from Arts, Engineering, CALS, the Johnson School and the Vet College pitch ideas, form teams, and prototype a wide variety of innovative potential products in the course of 48 hours. As a technical mentor, my job was to circulate among the teams and offer technical advice. Since there is a lot of software technology out there, and I know only a small slice of it, I wondered how useful I could really be. But in fact, even if I didn’t know specific details of a given technology a team was using, I was usually able to give them enough guidance as to what to do or to look for.
Entrepreneurship@Cornell is sponsoring five themed hackathons in Ithaca during the 2018-19 academic year: financial technology (September 7-9), hospitality (October 19-21), animal health (January 25-27, 2019), human health (February 8-10 in NYC), and one final one to be announced (March 1-3). Often there is a social entrepreneurship component to the theme. For example, the Fintech Hackathon this year will focus on unbanked/underbanked populations or regions. You can read more about them here.
If you are in any of these industries, or in the tech industry, and want to have a lot of fun and get more energized than you have been in a long time, I urge you to get in touch with Ami Stuart, the tech events manager. They need technical mentors, but also people with industry knowledge who can advise students about market sizes, strategy, business needs, etc.
Have you read the Cornell Alumni Magazine lately?
In the past I wrote about the differences between class dues and donations, and how your class dues support the work of the class. There is another dues benefit, namely, the Cornell Alumni Magazine (CAM). Founded by alumni in 1899, it is the only independent alumni magazine in the Ivy League. Under its editor Jenny Barnett, Oxonian and former editor of Harper’s Bazaar, CAM has taken on a new look and has run some really interesting stories. I want to highlight, for those of you who aren’t regular readers, some recent interesting stories:
- Cornellians are shaking up the world of granola.
- While some of us are finding it increasingly hard to get out of bed in the morning, here’s an alum who’s the fastest living septuagenarian marathoner.
- If you’re a cruciverbalist like me, try this Cornell-themed puzzle.
For a single dues payer, just over half your dues amount goes right to CAM for your subscription. The subscription year and the dues year run from July 1 to June 30, so the dues you pay before July 1 get you the full magazine subscription, starting with the July/August 2018 issue (you can always request back issues if your subscription starts later). Don’t delay — pay your class dues today. (And please support students while you’re at it by donating to our class scholarship fund.)
Upcoming events…
The Class of 1974 is sponsoring a Homecoming Tailgate for all ’70s classes on Saturday, September 22. The Class of 1973 is paying for any classmates who attend, so if you are in Ithaca that weekend, please stop by. If you’d like to volunteer for an hour as a greeter, setup or cleanup crew member, etc., please contact me.
To find events near you, check out this University events link.
I look forward to seeing you at Homecoming, or at a Cornell event before then!
best regards —
Paul
Paul M. Cashman
President, Cornell Class of 1973