The 2025 Alumni Reunion is a part of a venerable tradition of the extended UP Community gathering on campus to remember, reconnect, and renew. And because this action has had many forms during the years, formal and informal– Homecoming, Campus Day, Reunion — it is difficult to assign a Series Number to the 2025 Reunion.
We do not have the same obstacles when it comes to Commencements and Graduations. Now at Reunions we direct special attention to those celebrating ‘Cardinal Numbers’, like the 25th and 50th classes. This year, members of the Classes of 1975 (389 degree recipients, The Beacon 23 April 1975, p. 1) and graduates from 2000 (623 diplomas received, The Beacon 20 April 2000, p. 3) are our special guests.
The 2025 Commencement brought an additional 720 degree recipients into the Alumni community this year; they and indeed all alumni are welcome at Reunion.
Enrollment ; 1904-05 = 114; 1974-75 = 2,147; 1999-2000 = 2,847
However, in this article, we take special notice of a special class with a special anniversary. Here we celebrate the Class of 1905 on the occasion of their 120th anniversary of the Commencement Exercises held on Wednesday, June Fourteenth, Nineteen Hundred and Five. Not only is 120 a milestone year for the 10 diploma grads of 1905, but they also stand out on their own as pioneers in UP history. Because the Class of ‘Aught-Five marked the first commencement of the youthful school. Four of these men were enrolled among the 52 students who were there at the beginning in 1901. And it was the ten students listed above — hailing from Oregon, Washington, and Alaska — who were the first to cross the finish line, successfully completing work in Academic, Scientific, and Commercial Programs in the high school division of Columbia University.
Portland Magazine (Winter, 1985, p. 23)
Related articles:
Columbia University Valedictory Address, 1905 (the address continues on the next page)
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