Author: Haley Gray
April 20 will mark Occidental’s 125th anniversary, and college administrators are organizing a year- long celebration to commemorate the event. The festivities will begin with a Founder’s Day Carnival, followed by a series of speakers and events for the entire year aimed at reaching out to and showcasing alumni.
“Oxy has always observed its significant anniversaries in a big way,” Director of Communications Jim Tranquada said.
The main attraction on Founder’s Day is an 1887-style carnival, which will be open to the larger Eagle Rock and Pasadena communities and include games, free food and possibly a ferris wheel, according to Director of Campus Events Kimberly Uribe. The ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Samuelson Alumni Center on the corner of Alumni Avenue and Campus Road will also take place on this day.
The following year-long celebration will focus much attention on the alumni.
“We really want to make sure we take this occasion to not only engage alumni but to honor them,” Uribe said.
In addition to a five-day reunion in June that is open to all alumni, the Rhodes Scholars Speakers series will return. The Rhodes series is a program that brings Occidental faculty speakers to alumni communities across the country. The college is also asking department chairs to invite distinguished alumni in their respective field to come back to campus to speak over the course of the next year, Tranquada said.
While the carnival and the speaker series are free-of-charge, fundraising will still be a component of the celebration.
According to Tranquada, the school is using the occasion to show off the successes of the college’s graduates and make the case that Occidental is a worthy cause for donations.
“We hope that the anniversary will give us the opportunity to demonstrate that Oxy is worthy of people’s support,” Tranquada said.
Two fundraising dinners are scheduled for Founders Day—one at $18.87 per plate and one at $125 per plate, the latter of which includes a speech from President Veitch. Proceeds will go toward student scholarships.
“More than 75 percent of the kids here are on some form of financial aid,” Chair of the college’s Board of Trustees John Farmer said in his address at Convocation for the Class of 2014.
“Even for a full-pay student, tuition has never covered the cost of an Oxy education. Gifts built Occidental, and gifts must perpetuate the college so that we can continue to attract high-quality students and faculty for the next 125 years,” he said.
Since the recession, the college’s endowment has shrunk by approximately 25 percent. The 125th anniversary celebration offers the opportunity to increase alumni donations to the college and increase the endowment.
“An institution of Oxy’s reputation must be able to demonstrate the support of its alumni in the capital campaign if it expects to appeal to those individuals, corporations and foundations that are not so closely aligned with the college,” Farmer said to the Occidental Magazine in 2010.
“It’s their responsibility to support their alma mater so that others will be encouraged to do so.”
For more information on the anniversary celebration, visit oxy125.org.
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