If you graduated 50 or more years ago from Willamette, you are part of the Heritage Club! Welcome! As with belonging to the WU Alumni Association, this group has no annual membership fee.
For many years, those of us who are a bit more seasoned since graduation have been gathering at Alumni Reunion Weekend to celebrate our great connection to Willamette and each other. The downside of Reunion Weekend is that we often have WU friends from adjacent years and miss seeing them when celebrating just “our” class. Heritage Club events span many years and, therefore, foster connections that are missed when functions focus on just our graduating classes. This has been great fun.
Our activities now extend throughout the year! We offer programs tailored to us, like outings to the Oregon Symphony, an Oregon Historical Society-sponsored lecture in Portland, and evenings at Pacific Northwest College of Art. Most recently, we have added wine tasting, other social events, and faculty lectures to our calendar.
In the summer of 2024, we hosted our first San Francisco program with an evening at the Giants baseball game and held our first Heritage Club “retreat” in Sunriver. People from many classes participated. There were group events (a High Desert Museum tour, group reception, and dinner). It was a terrific balance of group and personal time, and we are considering doing this again.
We would love to hear your suggestions, so please email alumni@willamette.edu with your thoughts about potential group activities.
We hope to see you at our events in the coming months. You can check here for the upcoming events! Take a peek at our Facebook page for highlights from past events and invitations for upcoming gatherings and programs!
