Laughs light up the night at President's Reunion Dinner
The nostalgia and cheer was palpable as kindred spirits—drawn to their alma mater of yore—gathered for the President's Reunion Dinner at Concordia's Sir George Williams Campus on September 17.
It was a golden anniversary of sorts for Holocaust survivor and Sir George Williams University graduate Fred Fiksel, BA 60, BSc 61.
Guests warmed quickly to the Class of 1961 representative as he insisted on telling an "old school-girl" joke—failsafe, he reassured, due to key comedic ingredients comprising "religion, sex and mystery."
"One school girl said to another: 'Oh my God, I’m pregnant. Who did it?'" Fiksel deadpanned to peels of laughter, groans and a few raised eyebrows.
Moving on to serious matters, the septuagenarian told guests he immigrated to Canada in 1950 "with no money and an unfulfilled passion" for education. "Sir George Williams enriched my life and opened my mind," Fiksel said.
A sense of special occasion emerged this year, too, as the annual gathering dispensed with tradition by abandoning its usual brunch format for an altogether more elegant evening of dinner and cocktails.
As usual, guest speakers, set amid the backdrop of Guy and Ste. Catherine streets and the John Molson School of Business Building, recounted tales of their college days past. But this year’s nightscape lent added sparkle as reunion guests drank in the city lights outside the EV Building’s atrium.
Midway though dinner, André Bandrauk, L BSc 61, representing Loyola College’s Class of 1961, spun a yarn about an old classmate who, while travelling behind the Iron Curtain, was forced to shave his beard to satisfy truculent East German border guards troubled by the conspicuous lack of whiskers in his accompanying passport photo. Bandrauk, who is a computational chemistry expert, welcomed back his old friend and "his new beard" while promising to stay within the several thousand "attoseconds" of his allotted speaking time.
Quirky humour, yes, and there were surprises, too, as Dominique McCaughey, acting vice-president of Advancement and Alumni Relations, went off script by reading a passage from Sherleigh G. Pierson’s The Four Faces of Peace at the request of 50-year alumna and reunion guest Florence Yaffe, S BA 61.
The passage, an address by former Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson to the Sir George Williams' Class of 1961, spoke of education as a creator of "finer human hungers."
Unscripted and jocular, that's the kind of night it was. Indeed, President and Vice-Chancellor Frederick Lowy prefaced his own speech by apologizing—his solemn delivery betrayed only by an affectation of conceit in his voice—for the Stingers’ drubbing of St. Francis Xavier University’s X-Men in the Homecoming football game held earlier that day.
"Class reunions are a wonderfully nostalgic affairs," said President Lowy, addressing his captive audience. "We reminisce about bygone days and we look to the future."
That's what Kim Fuller did 15 years ago when she earned her BFA.
"I set out on my professional journey over a decade ago," the Concordia Class of 1996 representative said. "I never would have imagined that I would today be part of a movement to cultivate change and philanthropy, elevate the standards of an entire sector and share my experiences with so many audiences and organizations."
