Reunion 2000 will be celebrated on campus today through Saturday

By Linda Grace-Kobas

At the first Cornell reunion of the 21st century, June 8-10, alumni will dedicate an archival box of memorabilia for future generations and learn about the state of the university from President Hunter Rawlings.

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist William Safire will present the annual Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Lecture Friday, June 9, at 3 p.m. in Bailey Hall. Among his recent books are Safire's Political Dictionary and two novels, Full Disclosure and Scandalmonger.

Rawlings will give his annual state of the university address to alumni Saturday, June 10, at 10:30 a.m. in Bailey Hall.

Immediately following the president's address, Hunter and Elizabeth Trapnell Rawlings will host an informal reception, a "Millennium Celebration," from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on the university's Arts Quad. At 11:45 a.m., an archival box containing letters from class and association presidents, along with other Cornell memorabilia, will be dedicated. The box, funded by a Cornell Alumni Federation grant, will be housed by Cornell Library for 100 years.

Among other presentations on campus during Reunion 2000 will be the following:

• Former ambassador Paul Wolfowitz, currently dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, will discuss "Back to the Future? Will This Century Be as Bloody as the Last?" Friday, June 9, at 9 a.m. in the Proscenium Theatre in the Center for Theatre Arts. He is a member of the Class of 1965, which is hosting the forum.

  Dean at Johns Hopkins since 1994, Wolfowitz previously was undersecretary of defense for policy -- the principal civilian official responsible for strategy, plans and policy -- under Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. From 1986 to 1989, he served as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Indonesia. He also has held various federal government positions in the state department and has held teaching positions Yale University and the National War College. Raised in Ithaca, where his father was a professor of mathematics at Cornell, Wolfowitz is a graduate of Ithaca High School.

• The Class of 1950 will host a forum offering "Six Perspectives on a Watershed Half Century" Friday, June 9, at 10 a.m. in Statler Auditorium. Cornell Professor Emeritus Alfred E. Kahn will offer summary remarks after presentations by six members of the class.

• A symposium titled "Community, Communication and the Responsibility of the Individual" Friday, June 9, from 4 to 5:15 p.m. in Goldwin Smith Hall D will feature panelists: David Feldshuh, professor and artistic director in Cornell's Department of Theatre, Film and Dance and a Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright; Kenneth McClane, the W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Literature, poet and author; Minfong Ho, a winner of the Caldecott Award for writers of children's literature; and Barry Strauss, Cornell professor of history and director of the university's Peace Studies Program; with moderator Robert Harris, Cornell vice provost for diversity and faculty development and associate professor of Africana studies. The symposium's co-sponsors are the Cornell Council for the Arts; Africana Studies and Research Center; James Norris Oliphant Fellowship; the Cornell Class of 2000; The Bookery; and the Theater of Ideas.

• Robert Morgan, the Kappa Alpha Professor of English at Cornell and acclaimed author, will discuss "The Voice of the Story" in a lecture hosted by the College of Arts and Sciences Saturday, June 10, at 1:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium in Goldwin Smith Hall.

Among the more than 4,000 alumni returning for Reunion 2000 will be three members of the Cornell Class of 1925. Several special groups will hold meetings, including the Black Alumni Association, the Latino Alumni Association and the Native American Alumni Association.