If you’ve been around Mount Allison long enough, you’ve probably heard us call it “Con Weekend”— that special time each spring when Convocation and class reunions fall on the same weekend. With only two exceptions in the past 80 years (once due to the pandemic and once due to a scheduling slip-up in 2009), these two celebrations have been intentionally intertwined. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

As the person responsible for the Reunion activities for the better part of two decades, I can tell you that something magical happens when graduating students and returning alumni are on campus at the same time. The energy is electric. New grads walk around in awe — not just of what they’ve accomplished, but of the stories they hear from alumni who once walked the same halls.

There’s always a moment — sometimes it’s hilarious, sometimes it’s moving. But every year without fail, some remarkable crossing of paths makes it all worth it. This year, a student said to me, wide-eyed, “I can’t believe what alumni got away with when they were here — they’d all be kicked out now!”  

This year we even had three family generations converge as Arnold Hussey (’75), Joanne Hussey (’00), and Angus Hussey-Taillon (’25) celebrated milestone Reunions and Convocation together on Reunion/Convocation Weekend 2025.

One of my all-time favourite stories came during Reunion 2018, when a volunteer student named Everett Patterson (‘20) served as the class delegate for the Class of 1958 — his grandfather’s class. His grandfather had passed away before he was born, but during that weekend Everett met his grandfather’s old housemates from Trueman House. He even met his grandfather’s former roommate. “I heard so many stories about my grandfather that weekend,” Everett told me. “I feel like I got to know him in a whole new way.”

For those of us in the Alumni Engagement Office and for the countless volunteers who make this weekend happen, it’s these big and small moments that carry us through the planning months. There’s nothing quite like seeing a graduate realize they’re joining the 18,000-strong alumni family — and nothing quite like watching an alum come back and remember who they were when it all began.

To the Class of 2025 — welcome. To the alumni who came home — thank you. To everyone who helped make it happen — let’s do it again next year.