Class Events

Our 60th Reunion!

Our 60th reunion was on May 23-26, 2024. Co-chairs John Evans and Ted Wagner managed the event, and Bill Galvin edited the 60th Reunion Book, which was shipped to classmates’ homes and can also be downloaded here. Discover the identities of classmates on the cover here. On Thursday, golfers played the Tashua Knolls Golf Course, led by organizer Ted Jones. See Ted’s write-up below. Many of the non-golfers toured the newly refurbished Peabody Museum.

For a walking tour of Yale locations honoring the Class of 1964, see this guide.

For a complete schedule of events, click here. Friday and Saturday morning sessions featured presentations by Yale faculty. The afternoon sessions featured parallel sessions on various topics, led by ’64 classmates as listed below.

Friday, 1:45pm-2:45pm

• Len Baker on “Technologies for Remediation of Climate Change.”
• Steve Bingham introduced a biographical film of his life, titled A Double Life.
• Ed Massey, with classmate authors, conducted a workshop on how to write memoirs and how to get them published.
• Paul Steiger and a panel discussed the need for more journalists more skilled at following the twists and turns of the economy.
• Howard Gillette led a panel on “Yale and New Haven: Perfect Partners?”

Friday, 3:00pm-4:00pm

• Ward Wickwire joined with Professor Tim Snyder of Yale in discussing “Democracy vs. Autocracy.’
• Bob Archer on “Climate Policy Crossroads: Finding the Path to Innovative Carbon Pricing. ”
• Tom Barnard explained artificial intelligence and ChatGPT. See his talk here.
• Jim Hart discussed the outreach and ministry of Christian Union Lux at Yale.
• John Meigs discussed, with fellow Peace Corps volunteers, the impacts on their host countries and on their lives.

Saturday, 1:45pm-2:45pm

• Len Baker and Joe Wishcamper discussed, with a former special assistant to two Yale presidents, how Yale works — as seen from the inside.
• Steve Bingham introduced a repeat showing of the documentary film on his life.
• Sam Francis discussed “Evolution ... From Soup to Nuts,” spanning the history of life including its origin, its evolution, and its inevitable extinction. See his talk here.
• Tony Lee will introduced Professor Leiserowitz of Yale, who discussed national attitudes toward climate change.

Saturday, 3:00pm-4:00pm

• Jon McBride on the pros and cons of continuing-care retirement communities (CCRCs) — “There's a pig coming through the python.”
• Tony Lee, Margie Lee, Bill Woodfin,  and Jon Greene led a session on what you can do to fight climate change.

• John Wylie described his experiences in using artificial intelligence to create illustrations for his book The Rise of Authoritarianism in Homo sapiens.
• John Doane discussed why the Bible is the reliable history book of the universe, from beginning to end, including discussion of science and Biblical prophecies.

Slides from Classmates

Here is a video slideshow consisting of the slides provided by classmates who attended the reunion. To enlarge the video, click the "Full screen" icon visible at the lower-right corner when the video is playing.

The Golf Event

The “opening” event of our 60th Reunion was the iteration of the semi-annual ’64 golf outing, held at Tashua Knolls golf in Trumbull on Thursday, because the Yale Course is undergoing restoration. As the day dawned, things looked gloomy as thunder and lightning lit the sky. And by 11:00 only 5-6 players had shown up for the 11:30 tee times. It looked like our day would be a "wash", but at 11:15 the skies cleared and the club said "OK to go,”, though cart path only and the course very wet. But ... showing the true mettle of '64 golfers, by 12:00 we had 20 ready to play. And play we did!! Because of the later start and slower conditions, most opted to play only 9, so that we could get back to TD in time for the bar to open, but several did complete 18. The afternoon weather was very accommodating.

The course was really very interesting and challenging, with dramatic elevation changes and tough doglegs, but very fun to play. We may go back there for our next outing. Joining the fun were Mike Arons, Deb and Larry Capodilupo, Kari and John de Brun, Don Edwards, Doug Hershey, Butch Hetherington, Ted Jones and Diana, Dave Lindsay, Steve Norman, Martin Padley and Melissa, Chuck Post, Bill Schmidt and Mary, Jan Truebner, and Ward Wickwire. Though the competition was fierce, the clear winners were the Jones group of three ladies (after Jones' sex change operation) including Diana and Jan.

Past Event: Len Baker ’64 and Bob Archer ’64 on “Climate Crisis: Rethinking Required or Else!”

Bob Archer ’64 and Len Baker ’64 were featured in a 90-minute Zoom event on October 5, 2023. Their subject was “Climate Crisis: Rethinking Required or Else!” The event was attended by 70 classmates and friends. Joe Wishcamper ’64 organized the event and fielded questions from the audience.The speakers agreed on the urgency of the problem and the necessity of implementing some form of carbon pricing.

The video recording of this event can be seen here.

Past Event: Jethro Lieberman '64 — Everything is Jake

For our second program in 2023, our Yale ‘64 Authors Book Club invited Jethro Lieberman ’64 to discuss his new novel Everything is Jake and reflect on the differences between writing fiction and non-fiction in book form. The Zoom meeting was on July 13, 2023, at 4:00pm EST. In addition to his day jobs in law practice, journalism, and law teaching, Jethro has had a separate writing career, beginning with his first book, published in 1966 while a third-year law student. Since then, some thirty of his books have been published on topics ranging from constitutional law to CB radio. Everything is Jake is his first novel. During the Zoom event Larry Crutcher ’64 masterfully kept the pace moving over seventy minutes of conversation and Q&A about all aspects of Jethro’s career, thoughts on writing, and hints that another novel is coming. See the event video here.

Past Event: Nortin Hadler '64 on “Health at Our Time of LIfe”

On April 27, 2023, Dr. Nortin Hadler ’64 discussed “Health at Our Time of Life.”

Dr. Hadler discussed longevity, disease burden, and mortality as well as the medicalization and overtreatment of our age cohort, followed by a brief summary of the relevant health economics. Then he moved on to object lessons using selected classmate questions solicited beforehand. The discussion section was moderated by Sam Francis '64.

See the video of this event here.

Past Event: Russell Sunshine '64 — From Past to Present

For our first program in 2023, our Yale ’64 Authors Book Club invited Russell Sunshine ’64 to talk with us about two writing projects — his memoir Far & Away and his blog Agile Aging. The Zoom meeting took place on January 20, 2023 at 4:00pm EST (1:00pm PST). The video of the event can be viewed here.

Russell worked for 40 years as an independent consultant in international development. He advised national governments and international organizations on subjects ranging from foreign investment to democratic transition to post-conflict peace-building.

Past Event: Re-evaluating Civil Rights in Contemporary America

On December 1, 2022, this panel discussion was motivated by the upcoming Supreme Court decision on affirmative action. The panel featured classmates Jim Duderstadt '64, Joe Lieberman '64, and Joe Rich '64, with two guest panelists, civil rights lawyer John Brittain and Rutgers University President and former Yale College dean Jonathan Holloway. The discussion was moderated by Howard Gillette '64. To see the report of this Zoom event, including a video, click here.

Past Event: Yale ’64 Authors Book Club

On July 14, 2022, we held our third ’64 Authors Book Club event. Following two classmates’ books of fiction and nonfiction, this Book Club was devoted to poetry by classmate Syd Lea ’64, the former Poet Laureate of Vermont and a recipient of the 2021 Vermont Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. The book is titled Here and is available on Amazon. A video of the Book Club event may be viewed here.

Past Event: China — Confrontation or Collaboration?

Ward Wickwire hosted a Zoom event — “China: Confrontation or Collaboration?” — on Thursday, April 28, 2022. The panel included Ambassador Chas Freeman ’64 and former US Foreign Service Officer Mac Deford ’64. All classmates and their families were invited, and seventy-five attended. See the news story here.

Past Event: Joe Lieberman spoke on “No Labels: The Centrist Solution”

On Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022 the Class of 1965 hosted Senator Joe Lieberman ’64 via Zoom, with our Class invited to attend. Joe gave an hour-long talk titled “No Labels: The Centrist Solution.” Attendance included 129 from ’64 and 135 from ’65. You can see the video here.

Joe represented Connecticut from 1986 to 2010 as a Democrat and then as an Independent for the last two years. Upon retirement from the Senate he was instrumental in founding No Labels, a national citizen’s group committed to promoting bipartisanship in Congress, and he now serves as its co-chair. His recent book, The Centrist Solution:  How We Made Our Government Work, and How We can Make it Work Again, documents how a centrist governing philosophy has been essential to our democracy for over 200 years, and argues that it is just as critical today. At Yale, Joe was a Scholar of the House and Editor in Chief & President of The Yale Daily News.

You may want to read Joe’s recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece here.