Alumni Return to Mingle, Tour, Learn

Nearly 4,000 alumni, family members, and friends came back to Duke in mid-April to celebrate Reunions Weekend, and mingling with classmates was only one of their many options. With picture-perfect weather and the excitement of a fourth NCAA men's basketball title still palpable, returning alumni faced tough choices for how to spend their time.

Offerings included tours of campus facilities: Bostock Library and von der Heyden Pavilion; the Home Depot Smart Home; Duke Integrative Medicine; the divinity school's 53,000-square-foot addition; the newly renovated Lemur Center; and the Arts, Culture, and Technology Center at Smith Warehouse. There was also a groundbreaking for the next planned residence hall, dubbed K4, in Keohane Quad.

The weekend offered learning opportunities such as an exploration of Terry Sanford's legacy to North Carolina and how Southern politics have changed over the past half-century; an interdisciplinary panel on the health-care debate; a college-admissions information session led by Christoph Guttentag, dean of undergraduate admissions; a lecture on pain management by Jo Ann Baughan Dalton B.S.N. '57, M.S.N. '60; and an entertainment-industry panel moderated by Dave Karger '95, senior writer for Entertainment Weekly.

Taking advantage of the get-outside weather, alumni of Project W.I.L.D. (Wilderness Initiative for Learning at Duke) joined current students for a Team Challenge Course, and athletes of all skill levels and ages took part in the soccer and basketball clinics for alumni and their children, sponsored by the Class of 1985. Parents and kids also bonded over chemistry and liquid-nitrogen ice cream during a "CSI Camp" hosted by the chemistry department.

Reunions are sponsored by the Duke Alumni Association. Next year's weekend is scheduled for April 8-10.