Reunion 2025 news and notes: Celebrating ‘bonds that keep Lawrentians connected’

Welcome home, Lawrentians.

More than 600 Lawrence University alumni, family, and friends were back on campus June 19-22 for a festive Reunion bursting with enthusiastic reconnections, nostalgia, new opportunities to learn, and pledges to support current and future students.

The weekend included dinner gatherings, receptions, beer gardens, a 5K run, Alumni College presentations, the annual Parade of Classes, and a convocation in Memorial Chapel that featured the traditional presentation of class gifts. A gathering in Wriston Art Center celebrated more than five decades of London Centre experiences, something organizers hope to make an annual part of Reunion.

Despite temperatures pushing into the 90s, alumni showed up with enthusiasm.

“We are blessed with phenomenal talent and commitment throughout our Lawrence family,” President Laurie A. Carter said at the Reunion Convocation. “Thank you for being part of that. Thank you for lifting current and future students. And thank you for being here to celebrate the bonds that keep Lawrentians connected across the disciplines and through the generations.”

Class gifts

The Reunion Convocation included the annual presentation of class gifts. The Class of 1975, celebrating its 50th reunion, led the way as its members announced gifts to Lawrence of $6.2 million. The Class of 1985 announced gifts totaling $3.4 million, the cluster of 1989-90-91 $724,849, the Class of 2000 $171,626, the cluster of 2009-10-11 $68,647, and the Class of 2015 $13,876.

In all, more than $10.5 million was pledged to Lawrence—some of it for the Lawrence Fund, which supports operating expenses in everything from academics and study abroad to facilities maintenance and athletics, and some of it earmarked for specific uses.

“One of the most rewarding aspects of my role is thanking Lawrentians for their investment in this university,” Carter said. “Your time, talent, and resources make this university truly extraordinary.  Lawrence thrives because of your leadership and support. On behalf of our entire community, thank you for these very generous class gifts.” 

New LUAA president

Margaret “Maggie” Schmidt ’12 was meeting with alumni throughout the weekend as the new president of the Lawrence University Alumni Association (LUAA). She leads an LUAA Board that represents an alumni community more than 22,000 strong. She encouraged her fellow Lawrentians to look forward as much as backwards as they reconnect with campus.

“Renew connections with classmates, with friends, and with Lawrence, too,” Schmidt said. “Lawrence has physically changed since many of us were students. Take the time to embrace how Lawrence is continuing to evolve as higher education evolves. Make time to build new connections with alumni outside your class, with current students, and with faculty.  I guarantee you will meet some amazing people and learn something new, and maybe even unexpected.”

Schmidt, a civil rights attorney and educator, succeeded Matt Murphy ’06 as LUAA president.

She encouraged alumni to pay it forward, supporting the university in ways that make enrollment more affordable for future students and the Lawrence experience more vibrant, enriching, and vital. It comes at a time when the higher education landscape is rapidly changing.   

“Great things are happening at Lawrence—have you seen Fox Commons and West Campus?—and our investments are critical to the continued success and vitality of the college and our community,” Schmidt said. “The moral of the story—connect, engage, pay it forward, and celebrate. Whether you share your story in the classroom, as a volunteer, or through your philanthropy, there is a role for everyone.”

Parade of Classes

The Convocation was preceded by the annual Parade of Classes, one of the great traditions of Reunion. Members of each celebrating class walk the sidewalk together as they approach Memorial Chapel, stopping to have their group photo taken. 

Ted Katzoff ’65, celebrating his 60th reunion, led this year’s parade.

Gallery: See more photos from Reunion 2025

Ode to Minoo Adenwalla

Glen Johnson ’85 returned for his 40th reunion. He did so still thinking of Minoo Adenwalla, the longtime Lawrence professor who died Jan. 5, 2025.

Johnson, a former reporter for the Associated Press and Boston Globe who wrote a book about his time serving as Secretary of State John Kerry’s senior communications advisor from 2013 to 2017, calls Adenwalla his “favorite professor.” He maintained a close relationship with him to the end. Shortly before returning for Reunion, Johnson posted a heartfelt tribute to Adenwalla on Medium.

“It’s fair to say I never had a better or more impactful teacher,” Johnson wrote. “And it’s also without doubt I was extremely lucky to have him remain interested in my life and career until almost the day he died at age 97.”

Johnson would maintain a friendship with his former professor that spanned 45 years: “Minoo helped me through my studies, time overseas, career advancement, and development as a reporter and writer. He taught me much about friendship and loyalty, including the simple act of staying in touch and the loosening effect of single-malt Scotch.”

Tours of old and new

Tours were part of the weekend experience. In the full campus tour, alumni got a chance to revisit old haunts while getting up-to-speed on all that’s changed since they walked the campus as undergraduates. 

There also were guided tours of two new developments—Fox Commons and West Campus.

Fox Commons is a downtown Appleton redevelopment project that’s been ongoing since 2023. Lawrence is a long-term tenant in Darkhorse Development’s reimagining of the former City Center Plaza. Lawrence joins gener8tor, a business startup accelerator, Mosaic Family Health, and Prevea Health in the redeveloped mixed-use space that is now a centerpiece of the city’s rapidly evolving downtown. The third floor of the development, featuring a Pre-Health Commons and student apartments, will be open when students return for Fall Term 2025. The opening follows the unveiling last fall of the Business and Entrepreneurship Center and the first grouping of student apartments, all on the second level. 

West Campus, meanwhile, is a four-story building at the corner of E. College Avenue and Drew Street on the western edge of Lawrence’s campus—housing the Trout Museum of Art on the first floor, Lawrence academic spaces on the second floor, and apartments on the upper two floors. It is set to open in time for Fall Term. The teaching spaces and technologies on the second floor will elevate collaboration across campus and with the wider community and will strengthen the humanities curriculum, Conservatory programming, and the teaching in math, computer science, and data science.

Alumni Awards

Seven Lawrentians were honored with LUAA’s annual Alumni Awards—Katherine (Wroblewski) Diop ’00, Rebecca Doyle-Morin ’00, Michael Johnson ’75, Marjorie Liu ’00, Steven Wereley ’89, and Charles ’75 and Janice ’75 Woodward. Read more about the recipients here.

Diop, who was unable to attend, was presented with the inaugural Joseph F. Patterson Jr. ’69 Service to Society Award, honoring the legacy of the late Joseph F. Patterson Jr. ’69, whose leadership and advocacy led to the establishment of the LU Black Alumni Network (LUBAN). Patterson family members were in attendance. 

Each of the honorees received a special medallion designed by Lexi Ames ’17, a studio art and biology double degree graduate. The design was inspired by the original medallion presented in 1956 and celebrates the rich history and tradition of the awards.

“Alumni Awards reflect the college’s deepest held values and are given to alumni who have made outstanding contributions and achievements in a career field, provided exceptional service to their alma mater, and have gone above and beyond to serve their communities on the local, national, and international level,” Schmidt told the gathered alumni. “Recipients are nominated by you and selected by the Alumni Association Board of Directors.”

Alumni College

It was back to the classroom for many of the alumni as they sat in on Alumni College presentations delivered by Lawrence faculty or fellow alumni.

Timothy X. Troy ’85, the J. Thomas and Julie Esch Hurvis Professor of Theatre and Drama and professor of theatre arts, presented a session that detailed how he used a Fulbright Scholar Award in 2022-23 to research and write a play in Ireland about Dan Stapleton, an Irish revolutionary whose covert actions before and during the Irish War of Independence (1919-21) are mostly unknown outside of his family.

He told those gathered in the Warch Cinema that during an earlier teaching assignment in Ireland he struck up a friendship with Stapleton’s great-granddaughter, Lucy. She eventually shared the family stories of Stapleton’s heroics—a mild-mannered pharmacist by day and an explosives operative by night. It’s a story that hadn’t been told in any significant way, and Troy set out to tell the story, researching it during the first half of his year-long stay in Kilkenny, then writing it and eventually bringing it to a staged reading after returning to Lawrence.

The title, Run with the Hare (…and Hunt with a Hound), Troy said, is a reference to Stapleton’s double life.

He called the Fulbright Scholar experience one of the most fulfilling adventures of his academic career. In addition to teaching and developing the play, the year in Ireland delivered new insights on his own family’s Irish history.

Other faculty who presented Alumni College sessions included Kurt Wilson, assistant professor of anthropology, on the relationship between humans and their environment in the Central Andes, Greg Milano, assistant professor of history, on global history explored through coffee, and Allison Fleshman, associate professor of chemistry and co-owner of McFleshman’s Brewing Co., on the wonders of the craft beer industry in Wisconsin. 

Alumni presenters included Brienne Colston ’15 on being a values-driven leader; Megan Walsh ’00, a visiting assistant professor of law and director of the Gun Violence Prevention Law Clinic at the University of Minnesota Law School, on the Second Amendment; Najja Gay ’15, a quality control microbiologist, on microbial contamination; and Terry Holt ’75, an emeritus professor of geriatric medicine and teaching professor of social medicine at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Medicine, on narrative medicine.