JULY 22, 2025 – Today I joined the kickoff meeting of the planning committee for my 50th college class reunion. When I’d volunteered a while back, I naively assumed that I’d be among 10 or 12 classmates following an inner group of half a dozen leading the charge. In fact, so many people have joined the committee, the Zoom meeting required two whole screens of thumbnail portraits—dozens of them—to accommodate all the participants. The size of the crowd said much about the old time camaraderie of our class: in toto, we numbered just a few over 300.
Many of the names and faces on the screens I hadn’t heard or seen in 49 years. Students who’d acted like mischievous children back in the day (I was definitely a member of that club) became respectable grownups (I’m still a W.I.P.). Students who were already respectable grownups back then became professors. A-line hockey and lacrosse players became doctors, American history majors became lawyers (predictably), and economics majors became lords of private equity funds. And so on. I was fascinated by how these folks had leveraged their time and talents over the past half century, not only in advancement of their individual C.V.s but in their contributions to the fabric of society.
Doubtless the full class reunion next May will mimic a large family reunion. The latter includes, for example, parents, grandparents and siblings, with whom you are close—always have been; always will be. Then there are the cousins you hung out with a lot as kids, but when you were 12, they moved away, thus ending shared time and experiences. Yet upon re-connecting over potato salad and burgers at the park pavilion—site of the reunion—you’re able to pick up right where you left off. Then there are the newcomers—newly discovered second cousins that you didn’t even know existed until one of the reunion planners did a little digging, sent an email, and voila! You have an expanded, extended family. With this long lost cousin, you discover you share many interests, see eye-to-eye on politics, and when you add each other to your contacts, you know a long-standing friendship is bound to take shape. Then, as you indulge in the chocolate cake dessert, you remind yourselves and celebrate the bonus fact that . . . you’re related!
The college has assigned serious resources to the reunion project, which is no surprise, given the golden opportunity for fund-raising. Twenty years ago, when my wife and I were paying through both nostrils to put our two sons through private school and anticipating horrendously expensive college thereafter, I’d developed a cynicism about the condition of public education and the ridiculous cost of alternatives, especially higher education. I rebelled and rejected all solicitations by my alma mater. Why, I thought, should I be paying out major bucks to a system that is massively out of control financially?
Apropos of my own alma mater, however, I’ve greatly tempered my sentiments.
What changed my attitude was gratitude—the natural result of reflecting on what influences have contributed to the richness of my life. Rather than slide into complete curmudgeonhood, I realized just how lucky I was to have interacted with the students and faculty of that small college in Maine.
The head of Admissions back then was intent on attracting a “Class of Well-Rounded Individuals,” which was the slogan that appeared around the outer margin of a large (round) button of our day—handed out on some class-related occasion back in our time, perhaps graduation. In retrospect, I think my classmates definitely qualified as “well-rounded.” Among them were a fair share of serious scholars, but they weren’t only about books, papers, labs, and lectures. The class included many star athletes and accomplished musicians, actors, artists, writers, mountaineers, even computer geeks—though the term had yet to be invented.
To see many of these “well-rounded individuals” crowding my laptop screen gave me a thrill. If only the profs and mentors from way back then could see the fruits of their efforts, I thought.
But later, as I sat on our dock and enjoyed the sweet, warm summer breeze sweeping across the lake, I reflected on my college experience and how it had been enriched by the people on that Zoom call, not to mention the +250 who weren’t, but many of whom will appear at next year’s actual reunion. With a few notable exceptions, I’m sure, to one significant extent or another, we enjoyed advantage and privilege sufficient to open the gates of admission. We’d had a head start from the day we’d started kindergarten. Again, to varying degrees, my classmates leveraged the opportunity afforded by our college. At the next steps—graduate or professional school, the “work world,” and on with life—those “well-rounded individuals” had the inside lane. Yay class!
But what about the millions among us who for a million reasons, yet maybe just one reason—systemic disadvantage—didn’t have, couldn’t develop the opportunities that so many of us had in life, which opportunities transformed into advantages that added up to the big head start? Sure, probably a super-majority of my classmates contributed back to society a high multiple of what they’d extracted from their four years on campus (and elsewhere on exchange), but what have we done to address the disparities that continue to give some members of society a guaranteed advantage over others? If these gaps worsen and grow, where will our country be in another generation or two?
So, yes, I’m deeply grateful for what’s been allotted me. The advantages that I leveraged to gain admission to the school allowed me even greater advantage by the time I graduated. Moreover, the richness of my friendships and associations with classmates is beyond compare. But as we celebrate our incredibly good fortune in what “no one can take away from us,” we must be mindful of the anvil—persistent disparity—on which the hammer of inequality falls, sending forth the sparks of revolution.
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
