Reunion '16 brought together alumni, from all walks of life and all eras, with remarkable ease and joy in sharing their alma mater and their friends old and new.

It reconnected multi-Emmy-winning 30 Rock and Brooklyn Nine-Nine producer David Miner '91 with Jared Greenbaum '11, celebrating their 25th and fifth reunions. Now an Emory University MBA student, Greenbaum got some crucial Hollywood mentoring and career development at Miner's 3 Arts Entertainment agency in 2013–14. For Miner, Reunion also meant joining with other former Bandersnatchers for an alumni concert.

Reunion even drew nine doughty 65th-reunion celebrants, including Carl DeSantis '51, P '85, from the postwar Glens Falls extension. Attendees also came from other countries and Hawaii. The program was just as diverse: Along with special 50th-reunion discussions about life journeys, it featured events hosted by younger classes, such as an outdoor movie night and lawn games on Case Green, as well as all-class perennial favorites like tours of the former and current campuses, alumni awards, the alumni art show, golf, dancing, and fireworks.

Most of all it featured love and laughter all across campus.

For a photo gallery, alumni honoree profiles, and more, click here.

Saratoga Springs is a well-known stop for migrant workers during the racetrack season, but what about the community of indigenous Oaxacan immigrants who work behind the scenes in Saratoga restaurants? Theirs is a fascinating story—how best to convey it?

Jake DeNicola '15 has answers. With an anthropology professor and a fellow student who is the son of a Triqui family in Saratoga, he attended last summer's monthlong Storytellers' Institute, a part of Skidmore's Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative, to nurture documentarians in audio, video, and other media. A videographer, DeNicola shot interviews with local Triqui people, he says, "to document their day-to-day lives and what it's like becoming a Saratoga resident or helping more recent immigrants adapt."

Critiques and conversations in the Storytellers' Institute, and particularly the assignment to present a weekly four-minute "project pitch" video for feedback from the participants, "helped me gather my thoughts, develop the story, and find my vision," DeNicola recalls.

This year's institute participants are getting similar help. Student projects range from mind-altering drugs and first-time sex to a family memoir and the nuances of civil rights history.

One faculty participant is sociologist Rik Scarce, who is exploring the lifestyle movement of barefoot running. His video interviews with America's fastest barefoot runner, expert podiatrists, a sandal purveyor named Barefoot Ted, and some 50 others are ready for editing. He's curious "whether my organizational methods for a book can work for a video. As a scholar, I don't need to tell a story, but in this video I want to." Consulting with the institute's "brilliant fellows, expert documentarians, and creative students is a challenge and a gift," he says.

For biologist Erika Schielke, the input is informing her audio podcasts on field biology. She recorded scientists on a rattlesnake survey, a study of road salt in waterways, and more. One of her questions: when things go wrong-"as they do in even the most expert field science," she says-is it embarrassing or enhancing? A moose tracker's intense scrutiny of a distant brown shape that soon proved to be only a log was such an authentic moment that Schielke's fellow storytellers agreed she should include it in her finished podcast.

The arc of a riveting story, the technology and tricks of presenting it, and the insights that a narrative can awaken in its audience are all being honed in this month's Storytellers' Institute. [read more]

Six Skidmore seniors were longtime volunteers as mentors of local teenagers, and even after leaving campus with their degrees, they plan to stay in touch.

The Saratoga Mentoring partnerships aim to help at-risk youngsters develop life skills through a consistent friendship with a caring adult. Cierra, whose mentor is Rachel Castellano '16, says, "I used to be shy, but Rachel has helped me to be more outgoing. She is like a big sister-she's there for me." And Castellano says the mentoring has become "a close friendship." Activities shared by mentors and mentees range from cooking, movies, and shopping to visiting Skidmore's Tang Museum. Sometimes they just gab on the phone.
 
Brenda Jensen, director of Saratoga Mentoring, has high praise for the Skidmore students and their good influences. The youngsters often meet their mentors' friends or classmates, "and it can be a beautiful thing to see their minds broaden." And just by sharing their personal and Skidmore experiences over months and years, she says, the mentors can introduce youngsters to unfamiliar arenas-neuroscience, dance, chemistry-opening "a new world of tangible opportunities."