Alumni Agora Day will happen Friday, April 13

Alumni Agora Day is a day when former Uni High Alums come back to Uni and teach a class of their choice, usually, but not always about their current career.

Alumni Agora is just one event of the Uni class reunions. There will also be a lunch beforehand, and a school open house afterwards. This year, the reunions are from the “8” classes (1968, 1978, 1988…).  The only other reason someone would teach a class is “if they’re in the area for some reason.”

The event this year will take place during the afternoon of Friday, April 13. There will be three class, each 40 minutes long, beginning at 1:30. Students will still have all eight of their normal class periods, but they will be condensed to 30 minutes, rather than their usual 45.

This event took place for the first time last year, with the exact same format that will be had this year. The only difference is that it will be on a Friday instead of a Thursday.

Looking back at last year’s event, Agora Days Coordinator Chris Guyotte says, “I thought it went pretty well. It had some hiccups, but we did get some good things out of it.”

Dr. Nuckolls had similar thoughts, saying that she thought it was “good to see the old students come back and share with the current students.”

Whether Alumni Agora Day will continue to be an event is unknown, as the amount of alumni teaching a class is not as high as the Advancement Department hoped. It was originally going to be a full-day event.

“We haven’t had quite the response from our alums. They don’t come into town until Friday afternoon or on Saturday,” says Josh Hall, the Assistant Director of Advancement. Nonetheless, the Alumni Association is hopeful for the continuation of the event.

“I think it will continue to expand,” says Hall. “We’ve already got 30-40 alums wanting to teach classes”

In addition, Uni has seen many benefits from the event in unexpected ways, one of these this being Airtame, the application where you can hook your device to a class projector no matter what device you have.

“We had an alum who didn’t like the fact that we couldn’t universally connect so he gave us money to buy (Airtame),” says Guyotte.

Just like regular Agora days, Alumni Agora Day has classes of many different forms, from strict academic classes like “Climate Change is Real: What are we going to do about it?” as well as more fun, relaxed classes, like the three dances classes in Uni Gym. Just like classes the teachers of the classes vary greatly as well, from 80+ year old alums from the 1950s to younger alums from the mid 2000s.