Eggheads with the Beer

The alumni reunion used to be a college's equivalent of the lost weekend--a four-day binge of old dad and Old Grand-Dad, nostalgia and nonsense, high jinks and lowlife. Now, says Yale's Associate Secretary Howard S. Weaver, "the concept of the reunion as a big party is dead. There's an overlay of seriousness on top of the fun and games." Increasingly, U.S. colleges and their grads look upon the reunion as the chance for alumni to catch up on their education. Easing out the cocktail parties are lectures and seminars by faculty experts on everything from atomic physics to zoology.

This weekend at Yale, for example, an estimated 450 alumni and wives will be paying $12.50 per person for four-day seminars on such subjects as organic evolution, manuscript study and the changing world of scholarship, films as 20th century art. Harvard, which has set aside one day of its reunions for intellectual activity for ten years now, is offering grads two "university symposia"--one on Asia and the U.S. future moderated by former Presidential Assistant Adam Yarmolinsky, another on student careers, at which one lecturer will be Sociologist David Riesman. At nearby M.I.T., the alumni reunion features management seminars on industrial relations, corporate financial policies and market planning. The Amherst reunion is now, in effect, a five-day miniature academic semester with old grads being offered courses in humanities, biology and public affairs.

Ideas, Not Martinis. Instead of educating their alumni by class, some large universities hold separate reunions for graduates of their various schools, prime them with seminars and lectures related to their special interests. Last October, for example, the University of Minnesota held a reunion for its business administration alumni at the St. Paul Hilton, where a banker lectured on tight money and faculty economists examined new approaches to understanding consumer behavior. Vanderbilt offers both specialized and general seminars. Last weekend, alumni of the medical school were treated to a series of discussions on such topics as the new penicillin and the cellular aspects of the immunization mechanism. Vanderbilt A.B.s, on the other hand, were invited to a lecture on the future of the liberal arts college by Poet Allen Tate, class of '22.

The new sobriety of reunions, say school officials, reflects the nation's changing attitudes toward education: the gentleman songster on a four-year spree has long since given way to the serious student who regards college as the intellectual opportunity of a lifetime. By and large, faculty and administrators are delighted by the seriousness of their alumni. Professors regard reunion lectures as a chance to try out new ideas on a captive, eager audience. And experience has convinced school officials that instilling old grads with ideas rather than iced martinis is a far more effective way of developing pride in one's alma mater--and stimulating contributions to the next building-fund drive.

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