Alumni gather for events

This weekend, thousands of Pitt alumni will flood the city of Pittsburgh for various events… This weekend, thousands of Pitt alumni will flood the city of Pittsburgh for various events and offerings, including the Pitt-Syracuse Homecoming football game.

Leland Patouillet, who is executive director of the Pitt Alumni Association, estimated that about 80,000 alumni – out of an estimated 200,000 living Pitt alumni worldwide – will attend the more than 25 happenings being staged in honor of the alumni of various Pitt schools, colleges and organizations in and around Oakland.

Things began Thursday afternoon with Pathways to Professions – three hours of career networking programs for undergraduates, post-graduates and alumni in Alumni Hall. In the evening, a dinner was held in the University Club for alumni who attended Pitt during the 1950s.

Today’s events will begin at noon, when Pitt Business School alumni who graduated more than 50 years ago will attend a special luncheon at the Pittsburgh Athletic Association.

Afternoon events include a meeting of the Pitt Alumni Association Board of Directors, tours of the Stephen Foster Memorial and its theaters, and an Alumni Center Open House from 3 to 5 p.m. in Alumni Hall. There will also be a School of Education Masoner Lecture titled “Rebuilding Iraq” in the Frick Fine Art Building at 4 p.m. The lecture will be free to the public.

Friday evening, starting around 6 p.m, there will be a series of dinners, receptions, parties and galas taking place throughout Oakland, including the School of Pharmacy’s 125th Anniversary Kickoff Party.

The night will be capped with fireworks and a laser show on Bigelow Boulevard, as well as the announcement of the Homecoming Court. This will be followed by the 9:30 p.m. start of the Homecoming Festival, co-sponsored by the Pitt Program Council and the Alumni Office, in the William Pitt Union. The festival will feature, among other things, free food, art, arcade games and a student talent show.

Saturday morning, the PNC Panther Alumni Headquarters Tent will open at about 9 a.m. on Rooney Avenue, across the street from Heinz Field. The tent will include representatives, displays and presentations from various Pitt schools and organizations, available before the 12 p.m. kickoff of the Pitt-Syracuse game,

Saturday night, the Rhythm and Blues Clipper Cruise, offered by the African American Alumni Council, will depart at 7:30 p.m.

There will also be a Homecoming Cruise, organized by the Pitt Program Council, departing at 11 p.m. aboard the Gateway Clipper.

On Sunday, the AAAC will offer a 10 a.m. ecumenical chapel service in the Kurtzman Room of the William Pitt Union. There will also be an open rehearsal of the Pitt Repertory Theatre’s production of “Mother Courage and Her Children” at the Charity Randall Theatre, in the Stephen Foster Memorial, at 1 p.m.

According to Patouillet, Pitt alumni could find out about Homecoming events through the Pitt alumni Web site, www.alumni.pitt.edu, which he said receives around 51,000 hits, mostly from alumni, every month. The events are also listed in a quarterly online alumni newsletter that, he said, reaches more than 60,000 Pitt graduates.

He added that, apart from all the events planned around Homecoming, this weekend will provide a valuable opportunity for alumni to reconnect with their alma mater.

“This weekend’s events encourage alumni to become more involved in what is happening here at the University,” said Patouillet. “That ties in to the Alumni Association, because our job is to act as a kind of gigantic conduit between [Pitt] and the alumni body.”

According to Patouillet, many of the visiting alumni will travel in groups, clustered by various Pitt alumni clubs from around the country and overseas, fraternities, athletic and academic groups, and former neighbors and classmates.

“Lots of self-identifying groups of alumni will come together,” said Patouillet. “But what we do is provide an opportunity to package it all and provide some economics of scale.”