UC Santa Cruz’s Alumni Weekend festivities will include a thought-provoking symposium on learning, a farm-to-fork luncheon, a tour of the beloved Quarry Amphitheater, an informative and rocking jazz history event in downtown Santa Cruz, and so much more.
Last year, the organizers of Alumni Weekend set up a new online portal that lets Slugs know the names of alumni who plan to show up to this gala event that runs from Thursday, April 28, through Sunday, May 1.
That See Who’s Coming link was very popular in 2015, and now it’s back again. This year’s portal is sure to get loads of clicks from enquiring minds: Is your old roommate going to show up to Alumni Weekend this year? How about your resident advisor, your best pal from sophomore year, the friends who served with you on the Student Union Assembly, or your secret crush in lower-division general chemistry?
Aside from this irresistible portal, which already has hundreds of responses filling up eight web pages, there will be plenty of enticements to draw Slugs from all over the nation. Here is a highly abridged and deeply subjective compendium of event highlights.
However, if you’re coming to Alumni Weekend, or feel tempted to do so, you owe it to yourself to scroll through the entire list of published events to make sure you come up with a schedule that works for you. All you have to do is just click on this link, and when you see an event that strikes your fancy, you can press a little tab that expands the information paragraph about each event, and also press a tab that allows you to register for each event in advance—always a good policy, considering that some events can fill up very quickly.
Meanwhile, here are just a few options for you to consider:
Friday festivities
Early Slugs who are on campus at 10 a.m. Friday, April 29, can attend “The Jungle And The Beast,” a conversation with UC Santa Cruz emeritus professor Lewis Watts and intrepid Salvadoran journalist Óscar Martínez, who provides a close-up look at "the Beast," the decrepit train that travels from Central America through Mexico to the United States. Thousands of migrants cling to the train on their journey northward.
Also that Friday, graduate research will be in the spotlight during the 12th annual Graduate Research Symposium starting at 1 p.m. at McHenry Library. The Institute of the Arts and Sciences will hold an open house at 2 p.m. at the Digital Arts Research Center (DARC). That busy afternoon will also be a chance to tour the “Collective Museum,” a walk and interpretive tour that will give visitors a vivid sense of a campus-wide art project. The tour departs from the Digital Arts Research Center, room 302, at 3 p.m.
That evening, Slugs will also have a chance to see two brilliant minds in conversation when alumnus Lawrence Weschler (Cowell '72), an acclaimed nonfiction author and former New Yorker staff writer, has a provocative interview with acclaimed Los Angeles–based artist Ramiro Gomez, followed by a Q&A with Gomez. The talk starts at 4 p.m. at the Stevenson Fireside Lounge. In case you want to brush up on your knowledge of this up-and-coming artist, read Weschler’s recent thought-provoking profile of Gomez in the New York Times.
Then, as the sun is setting and the shadows spreading across the redwood-lined campus, alumni will attend a highly anticipated welcome keynote event called “How We Learn: An Evening With John Dizikes,” featuring the beloved professor emeritus of American studies, a founding UC Santa Cruz faculty member. He will be in conversation with Weschler and other special guests. The talk starts at 7 p.m. at the Stevenson Event Center.
Saturday, what a day
On Saturday, if they get there early enough, revelers may perk up with Coffee in the Cowell Courtyard, starting at 8:30 a.m. in the (you guessed it) Cowell Courtyard. Or they could take part in a birding walk at the CASFS/UC Santa Cruz Farm, a tour that also starts at 8:30 a.m. (decisions, decisions!).
For adventurous souls who would like to see what is happening out at UC Santa Cruz’s famous marine complex a few miles off the main campus, Younger Lagoon will be the focal point of a “Bioblitz” event that kicks off at 9 a.m. at Long Marine Laboratory. Another Bioblitz unfolds at the same time on campus at the Horticulture 2 classroom of the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum. And if you’re unfamiliar with the term Bioblitz, National Geographic describes it as an event "in which teams of volunteer scientists, families, students, teachers, and other community members work together to find and identify as many species of plants, animals, microbes, fungi, and other organisms as possible.”
If you like coffee, you won't want to miss alumnus James Freeman (Stevenson '90, philosophy), founder of premier Bay Area coffee roasting company Blue Bottle Coffee, who will have a one-on-one interview during the True Originals alumni panel called "Brewing up Success: The Story of Blue Bottle Coffee." The talk is at 10 a.m. at Oakes College.
Proud parents of energetic little Sluggers will be happy to see the return of the Banana Slug Kid Zone, a family stop and play area on the Oakes Upper Lawn starting at 10 a.m.
And if you’re a fan of letterpress art and hand-crafted books, as well as cherished campus traditions, head over to the Page Smith Library at Cowell College at 10 a.m. to take in a panel on the early days of the Cowell Press. At this point, nostalgic Slugs may wish they could clone themselves and be more than one place at once, because their fellow alumni will provide an intimate walking tour, starting at 10 a.m., of the Santa Cruz Quarry Amphitheater, a great opportunity to learn about the restoration plans for this beautiful campus meeting place, music venue, and landmark.
Then, at 12:30 p.m., Slugs will converge for one of the most highly anticipated events of the weekend, the Banana Slug Lunch at College Eight Courtyard, featuring farm-to-fork food. After being well-fortified, Slugs can then brace themselves to make a tough decision for 2:30 p.m. The Teach-Ins—informal classroom lecture events—are back and ready for a new batch of students.
Do the returning Slugs want to take in a talk called “How To Clone A Mammoth” with professor Beth Shapiro, who jointly runs the UC Santa Cruz Paleogenomics Lab and teaches in the Physical and Biological Sciences Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Department? Or would they prefer a thought-provoking talk by the legendary Elliot Aronson, professor emeritus of psychology at UC Santa Cruz, whose presentation has a truly irresistible title: “The Power of Self Persuasion: My 55 Years of Research in One Hour.”
Then, as evening rolls along, it’s time to head over to downtown Santa Cruz, where an immersive jazz experience, combining conversation and performance, will await adventurous Slugs at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center. The special event will feature a conversation on the history of jazz by experts in the field, followed by the vocal styling of jazz singer Kim Nalley, a Bay Area favorite and up-and-coming star who has performed all over the world, and is also a jazz scholar in her own right.
Before the performance, Nalley, along with UC Santa Cruz Humanities Dean Tyler Stovall, and UC Santa Cruz history professor Eric Porter, will give a thought-provoking presentation about global jazz history as it relates to race, class, and culture.
Sunday: Fun day
First off, check the schedule this morning to see when the brunch for your college is being held. Then set some time aside for a moment of reflection during the annual Ceremony of Remembrance at 11:30 a.m. at the Cowell Provost’s Inner Courtyard. Then, the wisdom of ages and the spirit of youth will converge at noon at Kresge Town Hall at Kresge College for “We Are Wiser Together: Igniting Possibilities Through Intergenerational Connections.”
Then get ready for a perennial Alumni Weekend highlight: the annual Dizikes Concert at 12:30 p.m. at Cowell College Plaza.
It’s going to be a busy weekend, so attendants would be wise to choose a strategy and book in advance. Reservations for all events are now open, and it’s a good idea to plan ahead; the most popular lectures and celebrations tend to book up fast.
