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While this year’s Homecoming didn’t have the traditional face-to-face interactions, it wasn’t short on connections or spirit. Nearly 2,000 alumni and friends participated in the University’s first-ever virtual Homecoming — a week of video premieres, speaker events and interactive experiences held Oct. 12-18.

Because Homecoming provided multiple opportunities for alumni to plug in from the comfort of home, it went far beyond its customary existence as a campus-based event to being a global celebration of #Bingpride.

Each year, Homecoming enables alumni to see the newest additions to campus as well as places they fondly remember. In lieu of in-person tours, Homecoming 2020 had a virtual tour taking alumni inside the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Koffman Southern Tier Incubator and University Downtown Center. The tour also showed designs for the future baseball complex made possible by an anonymous $60 million gift.

“[The campus is] absolutely beautiful, an upgrade since I attended,” Natacha Gonzalez ’92 commented during the virtual tour’s premiere on Facebook.

“Totally different campus than it was in the late 1970s! Looks like a great place to live and learn,” Dina S. Towbin ’79 commented.

The Alumni Association presented the inaugural Bearcats of the Last Decade 10 Under 10 Awards, recognizing 10 outstanding graduates who have received their ÂÌñÉç degrees within the last 10 years.

“It feels really good to have some recognition of all the work I’ve done over the past 10 years,” said Mark Pallay ’14, MS ’16, PhD ’20, design engineer at Seagate Technology and one of the 10 Under 10 honorees. “I really enjoyed my time at ÂÌñÉç, which is why I chose to stay for so long. I made a lot of great friends, had a lot of memorable experiences and I’ll always cherish the memories I made when I was there.”

This year’s Homecoming TIER Talks speaker event featured four faculty members — two of whom are ÂÌñÉç alumni — engaged in work supported by the Harpur College Advocacy Council Faculty Development Endowment. This grant program is funded by alumni donations and makes possible a wide range of research and creative projects by Harpur faculty.

“I’ve had the pleasure of being involved in the grant process,” said Michael Kerner ’86, co-chair of the Harpur College Advocacy Council. “It has been an extraordinarily rewarding experience seeing the great work that is done by the faculty here at ÂÌñÉç.”

Other Homecoming events included a fireside chat with President Harvey Stenger, panel discussion on issues affecting LGBTQ+ alumni, 5K run/walk, mixology and cooking demonstrations and Netflix watch party. Homecoming culminated with a video honoring the 70th anniversary of Harpur College of Arts and Sciences.

“It was an amazing week,” said Lisa Abbott, MBA ’93, Alumni Association president. “It was a different kind of Homecoming but a special time nonetheless. We can’t wait to see our alumni on campus again.”

See videos of the virtual campus tour, cooking demonstration, mixology demonstration, TIER Talks and the BOLD 10 Under 10 awards at the website.