From April 15–17, Uris and Warren Halls were abuzz with chatter from the roughly 2,700 alumni and guests who came back to celebrate their Columbia Business School reunions. The weekend featured numerous educational panels and discussions, a keynote address titled "The Current Economic Crisis — Where Next?" with Dean Glenn Hubbard and professors Bruce Greenwald and Joseph Stiglitz, and evening receptions and dinners. The Reunion participants were decidedly diverse, with alumni and guests coming from 50 countries and 35 US states. The session topics ranged from entrepreneurship and nonprofit board leadership to private equity and real estate investing to innovation in the biopharmaceutical industry.
On Friday afternoon, Marcelo Velez ’00, associate vice president for Manhattanville capital construction, gave an update on the School’s new Manhattanville Campus. Velez revealed the timeline for constructing the School’s two new buildings: construction is scheduled to begin in 2018, with a projected completion date of 2021.
Early in the day on Friday, Nick Friedman ’11 said he was excited to sit in on Reunion sessions. "I am looking forward to being back in the classroom for an hour or two and seeing what that feels like again," he said with a laugh. But mostly, he added, "I’m here to see all my old classmates and catch up and see what everyone is up to. I’m really here for my fellow classmates." Some alumni, like Xenia Razinski ’15, who was in the EMBA-Global Americas and Europe program, came for their first reunion. "A few of my classmates are traveling into the city for this. Everybody’s had big changes in the year after we graduated, so I look forward to catching up with them," Razinski said. "I also look forward to seeing some of our professors, who are hosting panels, and getting an update on the School. The EMBA one-year dinner should be exciting; it’s not just for our class but for other programs within our [graduation] year as well." Other alumni, like Jonathan Gordon ’96 and Samantha Marks-Gordon ’96, a couple who met in their Columbia Business School cluster, came "to reconnect with people we haven’t seen for 20 years," Gordon said. "It's really [about catching up] with the people with whom we were so tight for two years and seeing people’s stories." Marks-Gordon added that in addition to catching up and networking, the two returned for "the love of New York City. We recently moved away to Bethesda, Maryland, and can't get enough of New York. We’ve been circling the Upper West Side for the last 30 years."
Next year’s Columbia Business School Reunion will take place April 21–23, 2017.