September 2025 Fellow Classmates: Late-summer greetings to you all. As I write this, it is a blustery day on the New Jersey shore. Hurricane Erin is hundreds of miles out to sea, but her high winds and big waves are being felt here. We just took a walk down to the ocean, and it was an impressive show. The fury of nature can be remarkable. We are hunkered down for the night. I will leave the news of classmates to the notes in PAW, other than to mention a few encounters of my own. We saw Randy and Lynn Evans at a summer stock theater known as the College Light Opera Company in Falmouth, MA. We attended a class party given by Jeff and Maureen Marston in Annisquam, MA in early August. It was a very enjoyable night, with a number of classmates and their spouses in attendance. Finally, we had the opportunity to have lunch with our new honorary classmate, Betsy Sittenfeld in coastal Massachusetts – always a joy. Below are items that should be of interest to you. Tribute to President Goheen  As reported last year, we and a number of other Goheen-era classes have proposed that the Center for Public and International Affairs (the former Wilson School) be renamed in honor of President Goheen. This proposal is pending with the University’s Committee on Naming. We had been warned that their deliberations are taken very seriously and can stretch out over a long period of time (we have heard of proposals of far less importance that have taken years in process). If you support this proposal, the best things you can do are giving feedback to the committee, writing to PAW as our formers presidents have done, and talking it up to your influential friends. I am optimistic that with perseverance we can get this done.
Reunions Our 56th reunion featured cool weather and wonderful camaraderie for the 33 classmates and 20 wives who attended throughout the Memorial Day weekend. The class of 1970 hosted our 56th at Scully Courtyard, sleeping quarters for a sprinkling of “dorm rat” classmates and a long uphill hike from the P-rade’s start. We had our traditional hoagie lunch in the Class of 1969 memorial garden prior to the ever-popular P-rade. A true highlight was an impromptu gathering Friday evening at the 55th headquarters, pictured below: 
Saturday we gathered dinner at the Shultz dining room at the Center for Public and International Affairs, arranged by vice chair Andy Brown, including a short class meeting, pictured below: 
We always find off-year reunions especially rich, with a slower pace and more time for deeper interactions than the “big” years. This year was no exception. Do come next year. Awards and elections Also at reunions, your class received an award for the highest percentage attendance for post-50threunions, based on our performance at our 55th last year. Praise goes to Clay McEldowney, our intrepid reunions chair, and his committee. Shown below is Clay receiving the award with our Treasurer Chuck Freyer and the undersigned.  At Alumni Day in February, the class welcomed two new honorary members: - Casey Karch, whose work as our representative in the annual giving office over a number of years has helped our annual giving team achieve its stellar performance (See below)
- Betsy Sittenfeld, wife of the late, great, Paul Sittendfeld, who has served the class so faithfully over many years as hostess and cheerleader for so many of us and, of course, support of Paul’s mission of class spirit and unity.
Congratulations to them both. Homecoming/Alumni Day/Reunions The homecoming football game against Harvard is scheduled for 12 pm on Saturday, October 25. We will have our customary Class Meeting the morning before the game, and Joan and I will host dinner for class members and friends that evening at our home in historic Cranbury, about 15 minutes from campus and convenient to the Jersey Turnpike. By the time you receive this, you may have received further information and registration instructions by email. We hope to see you then. Alumni Day is scheduled for Saturday, February 21, 2026 and reunions, May 22-25. Class Treasury The Class Treasury is in very good shape as we look forward to our 60th Reunion in a few years. While the number of Classmates participating in dues payments dropped from 280 last year to 205 this year, that is not unexpected in light of the heightened engagement that a major Reunions engenders, and our AG success last year. However, Classmates not paying dues means they also don’t support the Sittenfeld Scholarship Fund and our Class’ legacy to Princeton, PICS. So please look for the dues card that accompanies this letter and take care of it right away. Our Major Reunions account has $50,000 in it that will serve as working capital for our 60th and subsequent major Reunions. Plan to join us in 2029! PICS Overall, just under 700 students applied for a PICS internship this year, showing that interest remains very strong and growing. We offered a total of 344 positions with 266 Community Partners. As always, a number of internships go unfilled, due to changing student interest levels, and so each year we change the mix based on prior year results. There is just no way to predict which opportunities will grab student interest, but we keep trying. This year, education and government placements made up almost 20% each of the filled internships, community and social services accounted for about 16%, and healthcare for 14%, 10% of students will work in arts organizations, and 8% in legal services jobs. Ultimately, we placed students in 250 internships with 199 Community Partners. The student stipend now averages $740/week depending on the cost profile of the city where the intern is working, for 8 or 10 week internships. Every PICS intern had an alumni partner – a Princeton graduate associated with the program, and in many cases the organization where his or her student will be working, who act as mentors and supports to the interns, many of whom will be working in a city unfamiliar to them. One very positive trend in regard to this is the number of post-2000 graduates who are coming back and acting as alumni partners; fully half of the alumni partners come from these Classes. The Class has established two endowments in support of PICS interns in perpetuity. The Class of 1969 Community Service Fund is a quasi-endowment established with the residual funds of the PICS 501(c)(3) corporation that ran the program for its first 25 years and was dissolved following our gifting of the program to the University. Further contributions were made to this fund by classmates in connection with the Leave Your Legacy campaign in connection with our 50th Reunion. Distributions from this fund wholly or partially provided intern stipends for seven internships over the summer of 2024. The Class of 1969 Service Internship Fund was announced at the 25th anniversary celebration of PICS in 2023 with the objective of funding two fully endowed internships, the first honoring the remarkable women who built and ran the program from its inception and the second honoring our classmates who chaired the PICS board prior to its transfer to the University. The Class seed-funded this endowment with $75,000 which was quickly built to $300,000 in gifts and pledges from generous classmates. It is an open-ended endowment and can accept further contributions from the Class and classmates. Annual Giving Annual Giving Chair Bob Raymar reports that we closed our 56th Reunion Annual Giving campaign with 51.4% participation... up about 3 points over our last off-year campaign. A little short of our 56% goal, but still a very good result. Our contributions totaled $285,998, which exceeded our dollar goal of $281,000. Thanks to all who participated and to our DreamTeam of solicitors, and to all who contributed! Overall, Annual Giving raised $68,407,815, of which more than $53 million was donated by alumni. The University-wide undergraduate participation rate was 43.9%, so the Class of ’69 remains – as it has always been in all respects – an above average Class. This year, our participation goal is 57%...of course. We will try to accumulate more matching funds in order to give classmates who focus on major reunion giving special incentives to contribute in off years as well. We all need to stand up for Princeton, now more than ever. PU’69 Website – not only for Reunions! By now, almost every classmate knows that our website (Princeton1969.org) is Reunions-Central for the Class of ’69. But that’s not all the website provides. Here are some of the many other things you can do on it: - Stay in touch using the 69 class directory, where you can search for classmates by name, geography, etc.
- Find classmate profiles, most of which were updated as part of the 55th reunion. (While you are at it, update your own profile – it’s never too late.)
- Read about classmates with the news feed and Brooke Stoddard’s “Catching Up With” articles featuring our amazing classmates.
- Learn about and sign up for class events
- Review the extensive photo albums via the Photos pull-down menu.
- Re-live major (and off-year) Reunions via our extensive Reunions Archive.
- Conveniently pay your class dues and make donations
We invite you to visit our website often for the latest updates. If this is your first visit, click "first time sign up" button on the Home Page for directions. For more information, or if you have any problems, please email our webmaster, Jeff Kaplan, at Webmaster@Princeton1969.org for immediate help. Conclusion May you enjoy the rest of the year in good health and good spirits. Peace 
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