After weaving my way through the crowd of well-dressed businessmen gathered at the hotel bar at the W Atlanta Midtown and getting lost in the bustle of Spice Market, I found my way to the Emory Alumni Association table.

The room was simply beautiful with a reflection pool in the middle and chic modern decorations. It seemed oddly fitting for an alumni happy hour with several of our peer universities, including American, Case Western, Cornell, Drexel, George Washington, Pepperdine, Rice, Rochester Institute of Technology, Tufts, Tulane, University of Southern California, Vanderbilt, and Washington University in St. Louis.

The event was the first of many for the Winter Conference of the Private College and University Alumni Directors (PCUAD). While the conference will be hosted on Emory’s campus over the course of the weekend, last night’s happy hour was a chance for alumni from PCUAD member schools to network with fellow alumni and visit with representatives from their alma mater.

The crowd was ready to go right at 6:00 p.m. and grew steadily from there, with about 120 people in attendance. From our post at the registration table we got to see some familiar Emory faces and meet some new ones (there were several alumni who attended both Emory and another school represented at the event who stopped by to say hello). Everyone seemed to be having a great time and continued chatting long after the appetizers were gone.

--Kelley Quinn 08B, coordinator, Emory Alumni Board