Cornell University Class of 1964

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Meeting Minutes: January 28, 2012

From: Barbara (Bobbie) Furman Attardi, Secretary

Location: Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Washington, DC

Present:

Name	Email
Barbara Furman Attardi	battardi@aol.com
Barbara Lutz Brim	barbarabrim@comcast.net
Tim Davis	TimothyWDavis@aol.com
Marcia Goldschlager Epstein	mepstein@ccp.edu
Tom Helfrich	tgh6@cornell.edu
Janet Spencer King	janet.sp.king@verizon.net
Linda Cohen Meltzer	lcm12@cornell.edu
Joan Melville	jmc12@columbia.edu
Stan Morgenstein	sm124@cornell.edu
Tom Mueller	tam26@cornell.edu
Carolyn Chauncey Neuman	ccn3@cornell.edu
Mike Newman	hmn2@cornell.edu
Bruce Wagner	bdw5@cornell.edu
Carolyn Whitman	csw54@comcast.net
Cindy Wolloch	cwolloch@yahoo.com

 Those not attending:

Nancy Butler	ntb4@cornell.edu
Toby Goldberg	tobygoldberg@optonline.net
Judie Gorra	judiepink@yahoo.com
Adadot Hayes	adh27@cornell.edu
Susan Holden	smholden@optonline.net

The meeting was called to order at 4:06 p.m. by vice-president Marcia Epstein, who filled in for class president Susie Holden. Susie could not attend this year due to her daughter’s illness. Susie, we missed you very much and send our best wishes for your daughter’s recovery.

1. Treasurer's Report (Barbara Brim)

The Treasurer’s report was presented and accepted.

2. Bill Vanneman '31 Scholarship Fund

Jeff Berg ‘79 (jfb14@cornell.edu), a CACO officer,  stopped by to talk about the Bill Vanneman ’31 Scholarship Fund. Bill was a Cornell athlete and űber-enthusiastic alum who died recently, and CACO wanted to do something in his honor. A cross-class IVY award fund was established to help the Office of Financial Aid counter aid offers from other Ivies (+ Duke, MIT, and Stanford) to attract student athletes. Athletics administers this award. So far, 62 classes have pledged support, and $135,000 has been raised. We voted to participate in some way and then to donate $2,000 to this fund. This will come from general class funds.

3. Class Website (Bruce Wagner)

We thanked Bruce for the beautiful redesigned website. We moved off the University alumni platform, which is now based on the limited Cornell Connect.

The remainder of the meeting was a discussion of our 50th class reunion, coming in June, 2014. Joan Melville gave an introduction and welcome.

4. Reunion Marketing and Communications (Carolyn Whitman)

Carolyn presented our new reunion logo and plans to make classmates aware of Reunion.

The class Newsletter (Carolyn Whitman and Barbara Brim) with dues mailing is ready to go out. This will include a tear-off for verification of email and physical addresses. (Toby suggested that a tagline cold be added under the signature to obtain this information). We need to work with the University to clean up email and physical addresses. Server will help detect bad email addresses, and the University will advise us as to what bounces back.

5. Affinity Marketing (Carolyn Whitman, for Nancy Butler)

Carolyn Whitman also discussed Affinity groups (for Nancy Butler who is in Thailand). Volunteers are needed for tasks to be done:
1. Fix the class database
2. Contact people for affinity groups
3. Use social media e.g. set up and maintain a class Facebook page

Affinity volunteers from last year's meeting: AdaDot Hayes, Marcia Epstein and Judy Gorra.

6. Class of 1961 50th Reunion (Linda Meltzer and Bruce Wagner)

Linda and Bruce attended the Reunion of the Class of ’61 and discussed lessons learned and added some observations:

- Catering: Cornell catering did the best job.

- Dorms: Donlon or North Campus would be big enough for us. Also program houses: Keeton, Rose. We could put a tent out also. The class of “62 will stay in Court Kay Bauer and set up a tent; those dorms have central air conditioning.
 
- We need volunteers with decorating ability. We will request them in the Newsletter.

- University Memorial: the University expects us to send someone to say a few words at a University-wide service on Friday at 1:30 p.m. at Anabel Taylor Hall.

7. Class Memorial

Nancy and Steve Einhorn will be in charge. The format will be decided later.

8. Reunion - Memorabilia (Joan Melville)

- All memorabilia that have been gathered have been scanned by Linda.

- We will use this to create a DVD which will be mailed to everyone with the first Reunion mailing in October 2013 (Carolyn Neuman wants to send this earlier-a year in advance).

- We should include a “save the date” which could be in the form of a refrigerator magnet rather than a paper which will be discarded.

- We already have many photos: from Reunions 25-45; programs from concerts and athletic events: ’60-’64; composites, pledge formals etc. Joan requested additional memorabilia as well as additional ideas of things to be included.

9. Reunion - Class Forum (Bruce Wagner)

This will be Friday morning from 10:00-12:00. Glenn Altschuler has agreed to lead it. He is a chaired professor of American Studies and the VP of University Relations in charge of the sesquicentennial celebration. He is also writing a book about Cornell history that will be coming out about the time of our Reunion. Our Forum will have a JFK theme, so Bruce will talk with Prof. Altschuler about a segue into JFK which will be the second part of the Forum.

10. Reunion - JFK Award (Cindy Wolloch)

Cindy discussed JFK options for Reunion and updated us on the JFK Memorial Award in general.

She suggested a JFK quote that we should use in any reunion programming associated with the JFK award:

"I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit."

This came from a closed-circuit TV broadcast on behalf of what would become the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC, November 29, 1962.

This award, our class legacy, was created by two visionary class leaders, Alan Hirshberg and Jerry Jossem. Unfortunately, both are deceased. So far there have been almost 50 grantees. We have a 14-minute video from the 45th Reunion to show at the 50th. We suggest that when we consider inviting former awardees to the Reunion, we focus on the current grantee and grantees from the years ending in “4” or “9”, as they will likely be at Reunion in any case. We will need to invite them soon and have some backups.

Roger D. Harris ‘65, a wildlife biologist working in CA was the first JFK winner. We have now also identified the grantee from 1967, who, sadly, has just passed away, and we are still trying to identify the awardee from 1970. That will give us a complete list of winners since the inception of the award.

The 2012 competition is under way. We will give $10,000 again this year. There are six readers including class members Tim Davis, Janet Spencer King, Judie Pink Gorra and Cindy Wolloch, plus former JFK awardees  Joyce West ’86 and Jared Genser ’96. Applications are due March 16.

Finances for JFK: donations were up from $1,800 in 2010 to $3,000 last year (~40 people contributed, the same from year to year).

11. Reunion - Yearbook (Janet King)

Janet is editor-in-chief of the Yearbook.

Do we want a DVD or a book? The class of ’62 has a DVD that is all color and will be given gratis to classmates. If they want to order it in book form, they can do so from the website, but it will cost about $70 per book.

The Class of ’61 had a book mostly in black and white that was not appealingly laid out. It cost $10,000 for 600 copies and was given to Reunion participants.

For our book, it would be nice to have color for the first 20 or so pages. This would include reunion memories. We would like to encourage classmates to send in biographical stuff including memorable moments at Cornell and personal reflections. We need to move on bios, hire a designer, find proofreaders etc. We will ask classmates if they have experience in any of these areas.

So far, the following classmates have volunteered to help with the yearbook: Barbara Brim; Nancy Roberts; Steve Lewenberg; Barbara Attardi; Elliot Gordon; Toby Goldberg; Bev Lamont; Nancy Hockensmith Beach; Anne Warren Pattison.

12. Reunion - Entertainment (Linda Meltzer)

Linda talked about a rock band. The Fabulous Greaseband could do a show at the Friday dinner for  about $7.500. Linda showed a videoclip of the band. They can perform and/or play for dancing. Another possibility was Backtalk Band, a local Ithaca band. Attendees voted in favor of pursuing Greaseband. 

Friday is the preferred evening, since Cornelliana Night, for all Reunion attendees, starts at 9 p.m. on Saturday.

A motion was put forward to adjourn the meeting. We thanked Marcia for standing in for Susie and doing such a terrific job. Cindy and Joe generously extended an invitation to class members for dinner and drinks at their house in Virginia.