SUNY Oswego has begun welcoming back more than 1,200 alumni for Reunion 2017: An Oswego State of Mind, which runs through Sunday, June 11.

The reunion brings alumni from around the world -- representing graduating classes as far back as 1947 -- to reconnect with their alma mater for a weekend of activities and events, according to Laura Pavlus Kelly, the college's director of alumni and parent relations. It will be the second largest number of attendees in reunion history, said Kelly, who also is a 2009 alumna.

“Reunion is such a successful event, year after year, and it is largely thanks to the engaged and enthusiastic volunteers who help to make it the party of the year,” Kelly said of the more than 60 volunteers who plan and coordinate more than 60 events throughout the weekend -- both on campus and off.

While events are mostly geared to alumni, the non-alumni community is welcome to attend one of the signature events of the weekend -- Saturday evening’s “Oswego State of Mind” concert, featuring Rick Zuccaro and his All-Star Billy Joel Tribute Band, in the Hewitt ballroom. Tickets for this throwback to Billy Joel’s concert on the SUNY Oswego campus in the 1970s, will be available at the door, she said.

Alumni will also participate in Friday’s “Come As You Were” BBQ and Bonfire at Fallbrook, Saturday afternoon’s Picnic on the Lake, and tours of spaces both familiar and new, including Tyler Hall, which reopened last fall after extensive renovations.

As part of the activities, the college will celebrate the creation of the first endowed scholarship by an active fraternity, Delta Kappa Kappa. The brothers have raised more than $25,000 to help support SUNY Oswego students who are involved in Greek life.

Several classes and groups are celebrating milestone anniversaries, including 1947 (70th), 1952 (65th), 1957 (60th), 1962 (55th), 1967 (50th), 1977 (40th), 1986-88 (35th cluster) and 1992 (25th); Delta Chi Omega/Tau Kappa Epsilon (50th); Delta Phi Epsilon (30th); Omicron Xi (35th); Phi Omicron Xi (50th) and Sigma Gamma (70th).

For more information, visit alumni.oswego.edu/reunion. To see what's happening throughout the weekend, turn to social media:

  • Dana Segall Murphy '99, Oswego Alumni Association board of directors member, will do a Laker takeover of the college's Instagram account, posting a few times a day to share what’s happening at instragram.com/sunyoswego
  • The alumni Facebook page will offer a trove of photos from different events: facebook.com/oswegoalumni
  • And the alumni Instagram will be busy too: instagram.com/oswegoalumni.

Two to be honored with alumni service awards

During President Deborah F. Stanley’s College Update on Saturday, the Oswego Alumni Association will recognize two exceptional alumni with the Alumni Service Award: Louis A. Borrelli Jr. of the Class of 1977 and Jennifer Shropshire of the Class of 1986.

Borrelli, the former chief executive officer of NEP Broadcasting and a founding partner of Marcus Cable Company, helped establish the college’s annual Media Summit in 2005. He was integral in the summit’s creation, not only through his financial support but also through his volunteering on the summit’s advisory board and by leveraging his professional relationships to attract notable panelists to the summit, including Ben Bradlee, legendary editor of the Washington Post; George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN and ABC Sports and co-chairman of Disney Media Networks; Charlie Rose, the world-renowned journalist; and his friend and fellow alumnus, Al Roker ’76.

He also has served as a March Matcher for our Graduates Of the Last Decade (GOLD) giving campaign, personally counsels and assists countless students in their career pursuits, returns to speak in classes as an Alumni-In-Residence (AIR) visitor, supports student-run WTOP-TV through major gifts and professional guidance and serves on the Oswego College Foundation and SCMA advisory boards. He received an honorary doctoral degree from SUNY at his alma mater in December 2015.

Shropshire, a 1986 graduate of SUNY Oswego and a 1996 MBA graduate of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, has spent most of her personal and professional life doing for and serving others. As owner and principal at Edward F. Swenson & Associates Inc., she uses her exceptional interpersonal skills and strategic thinking expertise to help nonprofit organizations reach their goals and fulfill their missions. For the past 20 years, Shropshire has shared her talents on the Oswego Alumni Association board, serving as president in the past. Under her leadership, including as OAA president, she led the board in developing a strategic plan, which outlined short- and long-term goals, established subcommittees to ensure progress was being made and created a structure for the board’s work to insure the relevance of the association to Oswego’s 85,000 plus alumni.  

She has returned to campus as an AIR visitor, a School of Business Symposium panelist, a keynote speaker at Honors Convocation and a Beta Gamma Sigma honoree. She served as a March Matcher for the college’s 2016 GOLD giving campaign, the national chair of The Fund for Oswego during the college’s most recent campaign and a member of numerous Reunion Planning and Giving committees.