Alumni News

Alumni Association Councilors, 2002-03


Banana Slug Spring Fair 2003 on April 12

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Banana Slug Spring Fair 2002 brought more than 1,500 alumni to campus. Among them were 160 members of the Class of '72 who reconnected at their 30-year reunion, Among those attending were (left, l-r) Linton Von Beroldingen (Stevenson '70) and Cowell '72 grads Cecilia Von Beroldingen, Anne Scott, Steve Miller, and Ramah Commanday. The Class of '92 (right) celebrated its 10-year reunion with a gathering at Porter Library. Organizers of the event, Shonelle Blake (Oakes, in red jacket) and Richard C. Hall (Kresge, far right), a member of the Alumni Council, pose with friends at the event. Photos: Shmuel Thaler

Alumni are invited to Banana Slug Spring Fair campus open house on Saturday, April 12. Activities include alumni reunions, lectures, performances, panel discussions, and tours. Highlights are listed below. For information or to RSVP, contact the Alumni Association at (800) 933-SLUG or go to the web site at alumni.ucsc.edu.

Alumni events

All-Alumni Reunion Luncheon. Reconnect with old friends at BSSF's largest event. Classes of '73, '78, '83, '88, '93, and '98 will receive special recognition. Alumni are seated together by class year. Alumni can invite a favorite faculty member to join them for lunch. Check the web site for details.

Provost's Reception. The colleges will hold late-afternoon receptions for alumni, faculty, and staff, generally at the provost's homes. Kresge's will honor Alumni Association award winner and provost Conn Hallinan (see "Campus Update, Alumni Association Names Award Winners"). College Eight's reception will honor associate professor of sociology Andrew Szasz, provost since 1998, who leaves the post in June. At Oakes, associate professor of history Pedro Castillo will welcome alumni in his new role as provost.

Thirty-Year Reunion of the Class of '73. Celebrate at Cowell Dining Hall with a reception, dinner, and "roast" of the year 1973. Reconnect with old friends and faculty members, and meet Chancellor Greenwood. Alumni are encouraged to scour old photo albums for period photographs and submit them (scanned, with accompanying captions welcome) for a multimedia reunion presentation. Volunteers are also needed to "spark the roast." Send digital photos and favorite song titles to the Alumni Association at alumni@ucsc.edu.

Thirty-Year Anniversary of College Eight. All College Eight graduates and friends are invited to a post-luncheon alumni/faculty discussion about the college's past, present, and future. Special recognition will go to the College Eight Class of '93, the first group to live at the college residence halls, which opened in 1989.

Fifteen-Year Reunion of the Class of '88. The class that gave UCSC the banana slug mascot reconnects at a post-luncheon celebration. Interested alumni can contact reunion chair Pete Blackshaw at pblackshaw@PlanetFeedback.com.

The Page and Eloise Smith Scholastic Society will hold an afternoon reception bringing together alumni, students, and faculty. The society offers scholarships, mentoring, and outreach to support the educational aspirations of foster youth, wards of the court, and orphans, giving particular attention to those enrolled at UCSC.

The BSSF Distinguished Faculty Lecture will be presented by Adrienne Zihlman, professor of anthropology, an eminent teacher and scholar of evolutionary theory, primate and human evolution, primate behavior and anatomy, and the role of women in hominid evolution.


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Recipients of 2002-03 awards from the Alumni Association Scholarship Fund are (bottom row, l-r) Aurotaranti Maiolini, Marylee Franks, Sandra Salcedo, Katrina Traylor, Jacqueline Vickers, Audra Walton; (top row, l-r) Clint Thorne, Julia Randall, Rebecca Hartman, and Sonia Villa. Not shown are Raziel Davison, Arwen Edsall, Quressa Robinson, Mark Sayre, and Shawna Tokars.
Photo: UCSC Photo Services

Scholarship winner defies expectations

When Sandra Salcedo takes a seat in her 8 a.m. class, the slight, brown-eyed 22-year-old is ready for the lecture.

Latecomers straggle into class, regretting another late night hanging out with friends.

Salcedo doesn't straggle, and if she's tired, this senior sociology major has a different reason for it.

Her typical morning routine involves waking up before dawn; feeding and dressing her two-year-old daughter; dropping her at the babysitter's; commuting to UCSC from Watsonville; finding parking in a distant lot; and making it to class with time to spare.

And that's the least of her accomplishments.

Salcedo's attendance at UCSC defies expectations. Her parents immigrated from Mexico with dreams of a better future, but their lack of education and limited English kept them working in fields and canneries. Salcedo's childhood was marked by poverty. She married and became pregnant before she was 20.

But these factors, which might have held her back, have instead become motivations for success.

"My parents always encouraged education because they didn't want us kids to have the kind of life they were living. They'd come home aching from work and tell us, 'Study, so [later in life] you won't have to be so tired like we are.' I am determined to finish school to make my parents, husband, and daughter proud of me," Salcedo says. Her goal is to become a social worker and work with children who've experienced domestic abuse.

Salcedo's commitment to education was recognized this year when she was among 15 students to win a $2,500 Alumni Association Scholarship Fund (AASF) award. Thirteen additional undergraduates are receiving $1,500 this year while in their second or subsequent year as Alumni Association Scholars. Donations to the AASF are welcome. For more information, call Jennifer Wood, UCSC's director of development for the annual fund and colleges, toll free at (800) 933-SLUG.


Online Community reunites old friends

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John Laird (Stevenson '72) won election to the California Assembly from the 27th District this past November. Laird will represent Santa Cruz, the coastal Monterey Peninsula, Big Sur, and Morgan Hill. Laird had served as mayor and city council member in the city of Santa Cruz and most recently was on the Board of Trustees of Cabrillo College.
Photo: Bill Lovejoy

The strangest thing is how our memories are so vivid of our days at UC, but when we consider getting in touch with old friends, we are afraid they won't remember us," writes Kristine Amodeo (Oakes '94).

We shouldn't worry.

Amodeo, owner of Sierra Art Studio near Sonora, California, knows from experience. She's one of countless alumni who have reconnected with old friends since the Alumni Association launched its Online Community. "It was a wonderful surprise getting her e-mail out of the blue," she says about hearing from a Family Student Housing pal. "Since then, we've been trading photos of our teenage boys. After eight years, they've all grown so tall!"

Chicago-based marketing and communications executive Rob Moore (Stevenson '70) had lost track of his old friend Buzz, who'd moved to Thailand in the mid-'80s. "He'd completely disappeared," Moore says.

After reading about the Online Community, Moore went to the site's alumni directory feature, "typed in his name, and bam! There he was, with an address in the San Francisco Bay Area. No e-mail, no phone, but I wrote to him immediately." Buzz quickly responded. Finding his old friend "was a pure emotional hit," he says.

Freelance illustrator Michael Wertz (Porter '90) used the Online Community and "found lots of current information and--lo and behold--e-mail addresses. I hooked up with Cheryl. We hadn't seen each other in about five or six years. She's linked with some of my fondest UCSC memories. We go-go danced on the huge tree stump in the Porter quad and made interesting 'food' concoctions out of the all-you-can-eat at Saga. It was great to see her again."

The Online Community offers password-protected contact information for 50,000 UCSC graduates, more than 5,500 of whom have directly personalized and updated their records. Grads can customize home, business, and/or e-mail contact information they'd like to share. They can even post a photo of themselves.

The multifaceted Online Community web site offers an alumni directory, resume posting and business-card exchanges, class notes, an Alumni Association events calendar, web pages for regional and affinity groups, mentorship opportunities, and much more--all free to UCSC alumni.

Log on to the Alumni Online Community (alumni.ucsc.edu) today and look for old friends. As Wertz puts it, "We're both a bit older now (obviously) and our hair is no longer dyed black, but the connection's still there."

 


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