Organized by Latin’s Alumni Department, Alumni Week returned in mid-April for another year. The week featured new student-focused events such as trivia challenges, hidden Roman hunts, and Jeopardy-style competitions between alumni and Middle School students.
While Alumni Week originally featured events exclusively for alumni, Director of Alumni Engagement Victor Agapay and Alumni Engagement Coordinator Ashlyn Pope shifted this year’s focus.
“We wanted to organize [Alumni Week] as a student-based event, with alumni opportunities to come back and interact with students,” Mr. Agapay said.
The Alumni Department’s goal of bridging the gap between current and past students proved successful.
“I didn’t even know what Alumni Week was until this year when I heard some [of my friends] talking about it,” sophomore Nicholas Frey said.
In the hopes of boosting awareness for the event, the Alumni Department attempted to put the event on students’ radar through Instagram takeovers and challenges complete with sweet-treat prizes.
Part of making the alumni-student relationship visible involves trying to grow the presence of the Alumni Department itself. “We’re not teachers, so having visibility or even being recognizable in the halls is a great achievement to us,” Mr. Agapay said.
While the Alumni Department focused heavily on events for the Upper School, Mr. Agapay and Ms. Pope also hosted a trivia game in the Middle School. The event included categories ranging from Latin history to pop culture, with contestants—composed of both alumni and Middle School students—competing in front of an audience of their peers.
In regards to the trivia challenge, Ms. Pope said, “That was probably my favorite [event] we hosted, just because I was so impressed with the [students’] participation.”
In the Upper School, Mr. Agapay and Ms. Pope launched a hidden Roman search. They printed out paper photos of alumni, hid them around the school, and sent students searching for them, offering pieces of candy as a prize.
“It was great to see kids running around looking for hidden Romans, because that means we have people learning more about what we do,” Ms. Pope said.
Senior Mel Butler, who participated in the hidden Roman search, expressed her enjoyment of some of the Alumni Week festivities.“I think it was a great way to have students learn about who used to walk the halls before them,” Mel said.
After a week of events across divisions, Alumni Week concluded with National Latin Day, where students dressed in Latin spirit gear and savored a blue-and-orange cake at lunch.
Following this year’s programming, Mr. Agapay and Ms. Pope plan to expand Alumni Week by adjusting the trivia content for a broader audience, increasing student awareness of National Latin Day through the Upper School Instagram, and adding new events in the Lower School.
The alumni office also has ideas for hosting in-person interviews or guest visits during Upper School gatherings, which many students have requested.
“I hope there are more events in the future where alumni get to be on campus, because I think they can tell us a lot about how [to stay connected with the] Latin community,” Mel said.
Mr. Agapay emphasized the value of making alumni connections accessible to students. “Students are so focused on sports, college, and day-to-day activities, but our goal was to teach [them] that there’s a network here to support you afterward,” he said.
