For Jason Wagner, homecoming weekend will be filled with milestones. It’ll be his first homecoming as an alumnus, his sister’s first homecoming as a McCormick freshman and his mother’s 30-year reunion for NU’s class of 1977.
“I know what Northwestern is to me and I know what my NU is,” said Wagner, Weinberg ’07. “For somebody to grow up in the same house as me and to be able to see what her Northwestern is … that’s amazing.”
This weekend, young and old NU alumni from around the country will come together on campus to sing the alma mater, chant the fight song and relive the memories that colored their college experiences.
“I’m really looking forward to going back to the football game,” Wagner said. “I’m just amped up.”
But it takes students time to regain their bearings after being away from campus for a while, Wagner said.
“It’s kind of like riding a bike. Say you haven’t ridden a bike for a year – first you’re kind of like, ‘Is this on Church Street?’ ” he said. “Then you start walking, and it all clicks again.”
Leslie Halpern, Weinberg ’07, called tailgating “one of the best parts of the football season, freezing your butt off in the parking lot and eating Chinese food.”
“I’m really excited – I actually have some friends that are coming back into town that I haven’t seen since graduation,” Halpern said.
Different alumni clubs also will host events throughout the weekend to bring together former NU students of all ages.
Bill Tempelmeyer, McCormick ’64 and president of NUMBAlums, the alumni club for NU bands and ensembles, said he and other band alumni plan to watch the Wildcats’ game versus the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers.
“(NUMBAlums will) take the field for the pregame and sit in the stands with the band during the game,” Tempelmeyer said. “We’re gonna send those Golden Gophers from Minnesota back to their burrows.”
While some alumni wait for Homecoming weekend to return to NU, others, such as Marc McClellan, Communication ’81, have stayed close to their alma mater.
The president of NUGALA, NU’s gay and lesbian alumni organization, McClellan said he has kept up with campus happenings.
McClellan came to Evanston this summer for a performance of the American Music Theatre Project’s “The Boy in the Bubble” and recently visited the Alfred Hitchcock exhibition at Block Museum of Art.
“There’s a nostalgia for the days that I was there as a student, and it just kind of brings back a lot of memories,” he said.
Alumni get-togethers like Homecoming help him feel a bond with other alumni regardless of their graduation year, McClellan said.
“I think there’s a lot of shared connections that we have just from our time there on campus,” McClellan said. “Things have changed, a lot hasn’t changed, but there’s still a lot of memories that we share.”
For McClellan, Homecoming means a return to familiar faces and shared experiences. He urged everyone to “come back and relive their college days.”
“I’d say it’s sort of like coming back to your family,” he said. “It’s been a great experience to reconnect.”
Reach Matt Spector at [email protected].
