More than 600 alums and guests came home to Northfield Mount Hermon in early June for Reunion 2025. Over the four-day event, the alums reconnected with old friends, explored former haunts, spent time considering the transformative power of their NMH experience — and had a lot of fun.
"Rain didn't dampen anyone's spirits at reunion this year,” said Stacie Hagenbaugh, director of alumni engagement. “It was a fantastic weekend filled with so much joy, learning, engagement, fun, and community. There was something for everyone, and the excitement shone in the hundreds of smiling faces throughout campus."
The weekend included a number of reunion traditions, such as a hymn sing, a service of remembrance for classmates who’ve passed away, and the Saturday morning Mec Peller Run, Ride, and Rowing on the River — plus a new tradition, a screening of “The Holdovers,” which was shot, in part, on campus. Attendees gathered for class dinners and trivia contests, campus tours, hikes, lawn games, and a special exhibit in The Gallery at the Rhodes Arts Center, “’75 Capers and Creations,” featuring work by artists in the 50th-reunion class.
Head of School Brian Hargrove provided an update on campus happenings, noting key highlights including the school’s commitment to providing access by steadily increasing its financial assistance budget: This year, 42% of students received aid, totaling $13.5 million. That effort, Hargrove noted, was buoyed by the remarkable $50 million bequest left to NMH by John Mitchell ’56 to support financial aid, among other priorities of This Place, This Moment: The Campaign for Northfield Mount Hermon. Hargrove also spoke about future plans, including the opening of the NMH Ice Barn and a field house, the creation of a campus humanities center, and new dorm space. And he reiterated NMH’s commitment to its founding values of inclusivity and justice. “This is what we do,” Hargrove said. “This is what we stand for. It is our DNA.”
It wouldn’t be NMH without some time in the classroom — or, rather, at a series of “Back to School” sessions where alums gathered to learn and discuss. On Saturday, newly minted alum Ariana Peterson-Ismail ’25 wowed the audience with a presentation of her senior astronomy capstone project on Hubble’s Law, which, she explained, transformed our understanding of the universe. Peterson-Ismail walked attendees through her project, from its highs (a field trip to the Williams College observatory) to its challenges (having to quickly learn the programming language Python so she could analyze a data set). In the end, she said, she learned not just about Hubble’s Law but also about the need for creativity and flexibility in the research process and that, as she put it, “failure is a part of science.”
At other “Back to School” sessions, attendees got the inside scoop on independent school and college admissions from Clair Ward, NMH’s dean of enrollment, and Joe Latimer, director of college counseling; learned about sustainability efforts on campus from Pete Sniffen, sustainability coordinator; and explored the NMH farm with director Nancy Hanson, whose updates included the news that animals will soon return to campus, with the arrival this summer of goats and hens. Others took part in a fun, welcoming modern dance workshop led by Gretel Schatz, P’19, ’21, ’23, director of the NMH dance program. Author and TEDx speaker Sandra Long ’75 offered a workshop on how to use LinkedIn effectively.
The session “An Intergenerational Conversation on Social Justice and DEIB at Work” brought together alums from across fields to talk about the ways they’ve carried NMH’s founding commitment to inclusivity and justice to their work. Co-hosted by the DEI Committee of the Alumni Council, the panel was moderated by Kira Manso-Brown ’04, executive director of the Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History, with participants Yann Kumin ’00, equity and inclusion program manager at Milton Academy; Vernon J ’05, whose firm Equity Platforms works to increase affordable housing; Lynn Todman ’75, vice president at Corewell Health, who works to close equity gaps in healthcare; and John Lozada ‘75, equity and inclusion director at the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services. The Class of 1965, meanwhile, hosted “Concerns for American Democracy,” a roundtable discussion about our nation’s integral values and the path forward.
In a particularly special session, alums had the chance to return to the classroom with Bill Batty ’59, P’84, ’86, ’88, GP’26, a longtime and beloved teacher and an architect of NMH’s distinctive humanities program, for a poetry discussion. Another longtime and much-loved former faculty member, Sheila Heffernon, also created a special moment on Saturday when she played the McRoberts Carillon.
In addition to tours of the Northfield campus, two events focused specifically on the school: At a Friday morning session, Steve Cain, dean of Thomas Aquinas College, which now occupies the former Northfeld campus, joined Mary McEneany, NMH’s chief financial officer; school archivist Peter Weis ’78; and former trustee Don Glascoff ’63 for the panel “Revitalizing Northfield: Present and Future Plans for Thomas Aquinas College.”
Cain noted that Thomas Aquinas is steadily growing, with the current student population of 200 expected to almost double in the coming years. In response, he said, the school plans to renovate and reopen several now-closed buildings, including converting Dolben Library into a dining hall and restoring Marquand Hall for use as a dorm or office space. The college has also acquired several buildings from the D.L. Moody Center, including the Northfield Auditorium.
“It’s outstanding to see the campus re-coalescing and the careful work Thomas Aquinas has done to restore buildings, especially the Auditorium,” said Weis, who spoke of the important role of Northfield in the NMH story.
The panel was followed by “Leading Through Challenge,” a conversation with Barbara Freedman ’66, Carol Ramsey ’70, and Jean Riesman ’75, all of whom served on the NMH Board of Trustees at the time the board decided to close the Northfield campus and consolidate the school in Gill. The move caused pain and sadness, the panelists acknowledged, but also resulted in significant financial and operational benefits that strengthened the school for future generations. “The people in your life who are Northfield Mount Hermon connections will always be there for you,” Freedman said.
On Saturday, alums gathered to learn more about one particularly celebrated alumna: Belle da Costa Greene, who studied at Northfield from 1896 to 1899. Greene went on to serve as the personal librarian to J.P. Morgan and then director of what’s now known as the Morgan Library & Museum, where she built one of the most significant collections of rare books in the U.S. Philip Palmer and Daria Rose Foner, who put together a recent exhibit about Greene at the Morgan, joined Weis for a conversation about her remarkable professional achievements and her closely guarded personal life, including the fact that Greene, a Black woman making her way during the Jim Crow era, chose to “pass” as white.
The panelists also discussed the role NMH played in the development of the exhibit, after Foner came across a letter about Greene’s admission to Northfield and contacted Weis, who was able to unearth her application records. (Read more about Greene in the winter 2025 issue of NMH Magazine.)
Photos by Matthew Cavanaugh. See more photos on Flickr.