Class of 1963 reunion in Brunswick, Oct. 7 and 8, 2025
We stayed at the Brunswick Hotel, centrally located and well suited to our needs. A
large meeting room for meetings, lunch and an excellent dinner all within the Hotel.
We toured the Joshua Chamberlain house in two tour groups, both with excellent
guides. Chamberlain’s story is much bigger than just his Civil war successes and the
house which he lived in most of his life is wonderfully restored and a great venue to
learn about him.
We had an introduction to the Bowdoin Art Museum from the director with special
attention to the excellent exhibit of photos of Maine in 1943. Black and white, taken for
Standard Oil and showing both Esso related sites and people as well as Mainers of all
ages during WW2. There is a wide range of interesting art, sculpture and art history
throughout the museum.
Wednesday’s highlight was hearing from Trish Riley, Chair of the Maine University
System Board about the system’s many strengths and challenges. Declining numbers
of college aged students, relatively low pay of professors, federal grant uncertainty,
necessary redirection of research programs and increasing incoming student readiness
for college are some of the challenges.
The UMaine system has been successful in maintaining enrollment -UMaine tuition is
$12,000 per year. Retention of staff has seen some success with help at Orono from a
retention fund that the President can use to support individual professor’s need for
equipment, travel and other support. As President Ferrini-Mundy put it, we are learning
how to work with the current funding landscape. There is a program to bring incoming
first year students on campus a week early to work with professors on projects with
other students to ease the stress of first year students (remember that???).
We read the names of 35 Class members who have died since last year’s reunion or
whose previous death became known to the Alumni Association this year.
Financial Report- Class members have donated $200,088 to some 50 different UMaine
areas of interest in 2025 year to date.
Our Class Fund has a balance of $9,759 with several outstanding reunion charges to be
paid.
Our Class Scholarship has a value of $139,032 which generates an annual award
around $3597 that will be rounded up to the nearest one hundred. The Kenneth Allen
Scholarship has a current market value of $19,043 which generates an annual award
around $474 which will also be rounded up.
The main result of the business meeting was to donate $1,000 from the Class Fund to
UMAA and $4,000 to the Presidents retention fund mentioned above. There was also
consensus that we should return to the Brunswick Hotel next year next fall with a tour of
the Arctic Museum which is also near the Bowdoin Campus.
Our experience this year indicates that in the future one tour and microphones for our
meetings are called for.
Attached is a list of attendees and the list of Classmates who have been reported as
deceased since our 2024 reunion.