Thousands of Wesleyan University alumni and family members arrived on Wyllys Avenue on Friday, Oct. 27, picking up their tickets to celebrate past and present students during Homecoming and Family Weekend. The three-day program gathered the broader Wesleyan community to reconnect during social events, listen to WESeminars, watch various athletic competitions, and participate in many more on-campus offerings. 

Attendance numbers for the weekend reached new highs. According to the Office of Advancement, alumni and family pre-registration was tallied at 1750 attendees—up 24% from 2019’s pre-pandemic numbers—in addition to unregistered visitors. Alumni participation was also up 18%.

To kick off the weekend, attendees had the opportunity to sit in on classes before attending planned Homecoming events. After a quick language or economics class, parents and alumni ventured to the Gordon Career Center, Office of Admissions, Olin Memorial Library, College of East Asian Studies, and Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery to attend open house programming. These included special collections tours and an overview on studying abroad at Wesleyan. 

The Zilkha Gallery opened its doors on both Friday and Saturday to parents and alumni to showcase its newest gallery exhibit, “No Title: Relays + Relations.” Artist Renée Green ’81, inspired by artist Sol LeWitt (who was previously displayed in the Davison Art Center in 1981) accompanied the exhibit with a WESeminar to reflect on her work and present a screening of her 33-minute video “ED/HF” (2017).  

“[After the WESeminar] we all convened in the gallery along with students, parents, alumni, and special guest John T. Paoletti, Professor of Art History, Emeritus,” Associate Director of Visual Arts Benjamin Chaffee ’00 said. “The gallery always enjoys heavy visitation on Family + Homecoming Weekend, and this weekend was no different…. Some students [even] participated in making the Sol LeWitt wall drawings.”

Another Friday afternoon highlight was the Center for Prison Education’s (CPE) presentation “Bringing the Library to Prison.” Jane A. Seney Professor of Greek and Classical Studies Chair Andrew Szegedy-Maszak, CPE Fellow and Program Coordinator Shirley Sullivan ’21, Systems and Emerging Technologies Librarian Lori Stethers, and former CPE student Da’Quan Long showcased the center’s commitment to offering a liberal arts education to underserved individuals behind prison walls.

“CPE’s students in prison, studying under faculty from Wesleyan and from our local partner campus, CSCC at Middlesex, share Wesleyan students’ appetite for bold inquiry,” said Sullivan. “It is our job to help satisfy it.”

Panelists detailed the research resources available to CPE students and the challenges of replicating Wesleyan’s main campus experience in a place without the Olin Library stacks, OneSearch, or any internet access. During the presentation, Long enthusiastically spoke on the importance of the CPE and its resources and skills, and how they have benefitted him in his life since returning home.

“[Wesleyan] helped me recognize what independent thinking is,” Long said.

After the conclusion of the presentation, a reception was held to encourage discussion among CPE staff and audience members.

“I had a lovely conversation with a parent from California who worked in libraries and had attended our WESeminar while her son and husband had lunch,” Sullivan said. “It was pretty great connecting with her on knowledge resources and seeing her new curiosity on how they can be brought into such restricted settings.”

Events continued on Saturday and Sunday, including the introduction of two new large programs from the Office of Advancement and Alumni and Parent Relations.

“This year, we overlaid two additional event objectives,” Director of Alumni and Parent Programs Amy Raufman said. “[They were] the Black Alumni Celebration and the public launch of Wesleyan’s most ambitious fundraising campaign to date.”

The Black Alumni Celebration, co-chaired by Wesleyan’s Black Alumni Council leaders Michele Barnwell ’89 and Joy Rhoden Lewis ’92, was a new form of programming geared at encouraging alumni-to-alumni reconnection as well as sharing insight into the current student experience through joint social and mentoring events.

“I’ve found so much Wesleyan everywhere I go in the real world post-college,” Barnwell said in an interview with The Wesleyan University Magazine. “Either you find your people or your people find you. But either way, no matter what, finding Wesleyan people out in the world seems to always feel like I’ve found my way back home.”

The Black Alumni Celebration is the first of a three-year pilot by the Office of Advancement to encourage engagement from Wesleyan’s largest alumni of color affinities. Next year’s Homecoming and Family Weekend will highlight Wesleyan’s LatinX alumni (WesLan), and in the Fall of 2025 Wesleyan Asian Pacific American Alumni (APAAC) will have their own celebration. 

The second new event was the highly anticipated unveiling of Wesleyan’s new fundraising project, following an extensive “This is Not…” campaign on social media. Approximately 350 members of the Wesleyan community gathered at a large tent at the base of the North College Lawn for a ‘Something Big!’ Celebration. Before the ‘Something Big!’ remarks, Assistant Professor of Music John Dankwa led the Wesleyan West African Drumming ensemble in an extended performance, and Assistant Professor of Dance Iddrisu Saaka held a dance lesson and class performance.

Vice President for Advancement Frantz Williams ’99 and Provost Nicole Stanton introduced President Michael Roth ’78, who announced the launch of a $600 million dollar fundraising campaign entitled “This is Not a Campaign. This is Wesleyan.” An eight-minute video presentation featuring inspiring student and alumni testimonials was also projected.

“Our ambitious fundraising effort will keep the excitement of the Wesleyan experience going long into the future,” Roth wrote in a campus-wide email. “Our goal is to raise $600 million: to expand access and financial aid; to unlock previously unimagined solutions by reaching and teaching across boundaries; and to activate our innovative, defiantly iconoclastic community as it rises to 21st century challenges.”

Saturday and Sunday saw even more events, including men and women’s lacrosse, men’s basketball, women’s volleyball, baseball, squash, and softball practices and scrimmages. Various alumni athletic games also took place.

“It was fun to see so many families, alumni, students, and friends of the program in attendance,” Head Coach of Men’s Basketball and Adjunct Professor of Physical Education Joseph Reilly said. “It was a great first look at the 2023–24 squad. With many key contributors graduating in the Spring, competition for starting spots and playing time is intense, and our upper class leadership has done a fantastic job mentoring our talented freshman recruiting class.”

The most anticipated sporting event was Wesleyan’s football game against Amherst College, gathering over 5,000 fans on Andrus Field and over the Northeast Sports Network live stream. In a historic 34 to 7 victory, the largest home win against the Amherst Mammoths since 1992, the Cardinals moved into a tie for third in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC). 

Carolyn Neugarten can be reached at cneugarten@wesleyan.edu.