2000-2001 Alumni Association Councilors

Banana Slug Spring Fair 2001 on April 21

Photos: Byron Patterson;, Greg Pio, Mickey Pfleger
At Banana Slug Spring Fair 2000 (left) Byron Patterson (Oakes '83) evokes a laugh during the African American Alumni Reunion Mentor's Circle; (right) Oakes founding provost J. Herman Blake talks with alumni about the life of the college at its 25th anniversary celebration; (center top) Ana Espinoza (Oakes '84) participates in a panel discussion at the Oakes reunion; (center bottom) old friends Don Nance (Merrill '70) and Becky Ray (Cowell '70) meet again at the alumni reunion luncheon.

Banana Slug Spring Fair is UCSC's open house and reunion weekend. For alumni, the event is an opportunity to revisit old stomping grounds while seeing the campus as it is today. BSSF 2001 takes place Saturday, April 21, with reunions, tours, lectures, and receptions. Alumni highlights are listed below. For more information, contact the Alumni Association at (800) 933-SLUG or check the web site at alumni.ucsc.edu.

Events to welcome alumni:

Find your old friends at the Alumni Association's All-Alumni Reunion Luncheon. Classes of '71, '76, '81, '86, '91, and '96 will get special recognition. Guests are seated together by class year. Contact the Alumni Association at (800) 933-SLUG or via e-mail at alumni@cats.ucsc.edu.

Every college will hold a provost's reception for alumni late Saturday afternoon.

Stevenson College will celebrate its "living tradition" and its 35th anniversary with a reception and panel discussion reflecting on the college's past, present, and future. Invited guests include former provosts Glenn Wilson, David Kaun, Dennis McElrath, and Carlos Noreña. Contact Teresa Huidor, Stevenson provost affairs coordinator, at (831) 459-2638 or via e-mail at tere@cats.ucsc.edu.

Kresge College will celebrate its 30th anniversary beginning on Friday night with memorabilia displays, panel discussions, and a college dinner. Former provosts and key staff members will attend. To contribute your memorabilia or for more information, contact Provost Paul Skenazy at (831) 459-4792 or via e-mail at kralumni@cats.ucsc.edu.

The Economics Reunion will include a Saturday afternoon panel discussion followed by an alumni/faculty dinner. Economics professors will also lead a hike, bike ride, golf game, auction, and other activities. Contact department chair Daniel Friedman (Graduate Division '77) at (831) 459-2657 or via e-mail at dan@cats.ucsc.edu. Find more information on the web at econ.ucsc.edu/alumni.shtml.

The Community Studies Reunion will include a panel discussion and reception to bring together alumni, faculty, and current students. Contact department manager Penny Stinson at (831) 459-2849 or via e-mail at penny@zzyx.ucsc.edu.

A gathering for Asian American and Pacific Islander alumni is being planned. Contact AA/PI Resource Center director Nancy Kim (Merrill '94) at (831) 459-5349 or via e-mail at nikim@cats.ucsc.edu.

The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center will hold an afternoon reception and roundtable discussion, including members of the newly formed GLBT alumni affinity group. Contact GLBT Resource Center director Deb Abbott (Porter '76) at (831) 459-4385 or via e-mail at dabbott@cats.ucsc.edu.

Association brings alumni writers to UCSC

Freelance journalist Don Wallace (Cowell '74) talks with a student during his visit to the fall-quarter Kresge class, The Writing Life. Photo: Greg Pio

Alumni poets, novelists, journalists, technical writers, memoirists: All are part of The Writing Life, a course created at Kresge College over the last two years with the support of the Alumni Association's Distinguished Visiting Professor program.

"We wanted to bring alumni back to campus to talk about how they've made lives around writing," Provost Paul Skenazy said. "A lot of our students are transfers trying to figure out where to go with what they learn here at the university. We're showing them what some writers have done with their education at UCSC."

Kresge was able to create the course by combining college alumni funds with funds from the Distin-guished Visiting Professor endowment. Mini-grants support three- to four-day residencies that bring alumni to campus to read from their work and meet with students.

In 1999, Gloria Anzaldua, author of Borderlands/La frontera and other books, talked with students about her work as a poet, community activist, and essayist focusing on women of color. Last fall, freelance journalist and memoirist Don Wallace (Cowell '74) and New Yorker staff writer William Finnegan (Cowell '74) worked with core-course students on issues of race, gender, and culture. In February, poet Mark Jarman (Porter '74) is teaching poetry and poetic narrative. In April, Nora Okja Keller (Graduate Division '90), whose book, Comfort Woman, mixes memories of the Japanese occupation of Korea with contemporary issues of a daughter's struggles with her mother, will read from her new work.

Surrounding these alumni residencies have been class visits from other alumni writers, including Cris Beam (Kresge '94), Cate Corcoran (Kresge '88), Donna Jones (Kresge '93), Persis Karim (Merrill '85), Thad Nodine (Graduate Division '90), Juan Ramirez (Merrill '86), and Susan Watrous (Kresge '87).

During winter quarter, another version of The Writing Life is being offered with another series of alumni writers, whose works range from short stories and travel commentaries to investigative journalism.

Established in 1982 with a $250,000 endowment funded by Alumni Association dues income and donations, the Distinguished Visiting Professorship rotates annually among the colleges. The endowment is intended to enhance intellectual life at the colleges.

'Phone home,' says your alma mater

Always wondered what happened to so-and-so from your college days? Want to know if there are other UCSC alumni in your area? The Alumni Association can help, but only if it knows where to find you.

When you keep your alma mater informed of your address (street and e-mail):

Your friends can find you. The Alumni Association frequently forwards mail from one long-lost college pal to another. (Address and phone data are never released, but mail is forwarded.)

Invitations to your reunion and local alumni events will reach you.

You'll continue to receive this magazine and other occasional UCSC publications.

You'll receive the bimonthly E-Slug Bulletin, a quick read with the hottest campus headlines.

A comprehensive UCSC alumni directory is being published in May. To compile it, the association recently mailed personal data updates to all 45,000 graduates for whom it had valid addresses. If you didn't fill out your update form, have moved, or simply changed your e-mail address, then your alma mater wants to hear from you.

Updating your information is simple via the Alumni Association's web site.

Go to alumni.ucsc.edu and click on the "update your address" link.

Shown at a fall 2000 meeting to plan an affinity group for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender alumni are (l-r) UCSC staff member David Kirk, Stuart Rosenstein (Kresge '99), John Laird (Stevenson '72), Deb Abbott (Porter '76, director of the UCSC GLBT Resource Center), and Alumni Council member Renée Martínez (Oakes '83). Photo: UCSC photo services

Newest affinity group for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender alumni

Kresge senior Gilbert Velasquez Jr., shown here with his wife, Ana, and daughter, Yamileth, is one of 82 UCSC students who've received awards from the Alumni Association Scholarship Fund. Last year, generous alumni donors pushed the fund's endowment to $1 million. This year, 15 students, an all-time high, received $2,500 awards. The Alumni Association will continue fundraising to make multiyear scholarship awards available for financially needy UCSC undergraduates. Photo: UCSC photo services

Anew trend is emerging for the UCSC Alumni Association: affinity groups. In the past year, alumni have organized Black Escargot, a network for African American alumni, and the Latino Alumni Network for Chicano and Latino graduates. Now, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender alumni are joining together to form the newest Alumni Association affinity group at UCSC.

"We are delighted to support these grassroots organizing efforts, which have brought hundreds of alumni into meaningful interaction with each other and the campus," says Alumni Association executive director Carolyn Christopherson.

"The new affinity group will help alumni find each other," says Deb Abbott (Porter '76), director of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) Resource Center on campus. "This network will build a sense of community that was impossible to achieve at the time UCSC's older alumni attended college."

To get on the mailing list or to volunteer for the GLBT affinity group, contact the GLBT Center director Deb Abbott at (831) 459-4385 or via e-mail at dabbott@cats.ucsc.edu.