Reunion 2024: Alumni From Around the World Reunite, Reflect, and Reenergize
Nearly 1,000 graduates enjoyed a weekend of celebrations, panels, and meaningful conversations.
Reunion 2024 was a weekend of renewed friendships and community.
Alumni from 49 countries joined together in New York City for a festive cocktail party at Cipriani 42nd Street in midtown on June 7, and gathered the following day on campus in Morningside Heights for panels, a family picnic, and class dinners. A conversation between Ellen Futter BC ’71, LAW ’74, the former president of Barnard College and the American Museum of Natural History, and Gillian Lester, Dean and Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law, who stepped down from her leadership role on August 1, was a highlight of the day.
“Reunions have been one of my great joys of my time as dean,” Dean Lester told the alumni in attendance for her conversation with Futter. “It's really been one of the greatest pleasures getting to know the multigenerational rainbow of people in different sectors, people who come at life from different parts of the world and different walks of life. And it's been just so exciting and inspiring for me to get to know the Columbia community writ large. So, it gives me great joy to be able to have my last event be here at a reunion.”
Dean Lester thanked the reunion-year classes, whose graduation years end in 4s and 9s, for their outstanding fundraising efforts. “Your generosity has been tremendous,” she said, noting that several classes had been particularly successful: As the Law School closes out its fiscal year, the Classes of 1974 and 1979 have the highest rates of participation; the Class of 1984 has the highest level of giving ($4.2 million), followed by the Class of 1974 ($2.9 million), and the Class of 1989 ($1.5 million). This year’s reunion classes are on a trajectory to raise more than $14.5 million.
During their conversation, Dean Lester explored the theme of leadership with Futter, who received the Law School’s Medal for Excellence in 2022 and currently serves as the interim president of the Markle Foundation. Futter spoke about the challenges of developing and implementing a vision for a nonprofit institution. As a president, “you’re not there just to hold the tiller, as it were, and just to make sure the ship can proceed smoothly—although in these times, and in any times, truthfully, it never proceeds smoothly,” Futter said. “I really believe that you’re there to advance an institution, to make it better, to make it more suited to the times.”
Their conversation also touched on nonprofit governance and capital projects (such as the 2000 opening of the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History, which included a major renovation of the Hayden Planetarium), the unpredictability of careers, and navigating a nonprofit during the COVID-19 pandemic. Futter’s final bit of leadership advice focused on the need to do two important things simultaneously: “One is to lead from the front, which is like being the conductor of an orchestra, and it’s fairly straightforward. You have to use your pulpit,” she said. “The other is knowing—and it’s really hard to know—when and how to lead from behind. And I think it’s the meshing of the two and the recognition of which moment is which, which I assure you, you do not always get right.”
Reunion 2024 events included several panels featuring faculty and alumni. “Free Speech on Campus” was moderated by Lisa Landau Carnoy CC ’89, former partner, chief financial officer, and head of operations for AlixPartners and chair emerita of the Columbia University Board of Trustees. The panel included remarks from Zila Acosta-Grimes CC ’11, LAW’15, senior associate at Linklaters; Jeremy Kessler, Stanley H. Fuld Professor of Law; David Schizer, Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law and Economics and dean emeritus of Columbia Law School; and Donald Verrilli Jr. ’83, partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson and a Columbia lecturer in law.
“Elections, Democracy, and Civil Rights,” a CLE panel moderated by Richard Briffault, Joseph P. Chamberlain Professor of Legislation, featured remarks from Ashraf Ahmed, associate professor of law; Ellen Bowden McIntyre ’94, deputy civil chief, affirmative civil enforcement, at the United States Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Tennessee; and T. Alora Thomas-Lundborg ’09, strategic litigation and advocacy director at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School.
Another CLE panel, “AI: Regulation and Liability,” moderated by Shyamkrishna Balganesh, Sol Goldman Professor of Law, included comments from Fabio Bertoni JRN ’95, LAW ’96, general counsel of The New Yorker; Arka Chatterjee ’09, currently director and principal intellectual property counsel, reproductive and organ health at Natera; and Rebecca Hughes Parker ’04, counsel at Dentons.
