Alumni and families of current students attended the College’s seventh annual Garnet Homecoming and Family Weekend, Oct. 28–30. The bright, crisp weather and wonderful display of fall foliage provided a picturesque backdrop to the weekend’s highlights, including the fifth Garnet Athletics Hall of Fame banquet and induction ceremony; the annual McCabe Lecture; the first Garnet Weekend Tailgate; a reunion concert by Sixteen Feet, one of the College’s most beloved a cappella groups; and the annual Crum Regatta.

The fifth class to enter the Garnet Athletics Hall of Fame consists of Gloria Evans Dillenbeck Dodd ’47 (badminton, tennis), Jackie Heineman Gidas ’76 (swimming), Jokotade Agunloye Greenberg ’01 (cross country, track & field), Alan Valentine ’21 (football, lacrosse), Joe Valis ’83 (lacrosse) and the 1996 field hockey team. The induction ceremony also provided a fitting moment to pay tribute to former football coach Tom Lapinsky, who died last month and who spoke at the event two years ago at the induction of the 1984 squad.  

Patrick Awuah ’89, president and founder of Ashesi University College in Ghana, delivered the annual McCabe Lecture. In his talk, Awuah discussed the process that led him from working as a software engineer at Microsoft to founding a university modeled after Swarthmore in Africa. Awuah's lecture addressed the challenges and opportunities Africa faces, and why he has come to believe more strongly than ever that a liberal arts education is fundamentally important to Africa's future.

For the second year in a row, the annual Crum Regatta was held indoors in Ware Pool. The Regatta—in which students race “anything that floats”—has been an annual tradition since 1972.