Strong attendance and camaraderie created an invigorating sense of Poet pride, said Office of Alumni Relations Director Ana Gutierrez ’96.
“It was an opportunity for alumni to network and incoming students to get a taste of campus life while mingling with faculty, staff , and families,” Gutierrez said. “They had the chance to discover more about today’s Whittier and where the school is headed in the future.”
The first stop of the Poet4Life 2023 tour saw alumni, current students, incoming students, and other guests enjoying hors d'oeuvres on the Whittier College campus.
While reflecting and reminiscing on the value of the Whittier College education, guests heard brief remarks from Interim President Kristine Dillon ’73. Joe McCarthy ’97 hosted the July 8 event at Whittier’s Villalobos Hall while Krystal Anderson ’14 hosted the July 9 stop at Perla Mexican Cuisine in downtown Santa Ana.
Gutierrez noted that there was a great turnout of enthusiastic Poets — in addition to representation from faculty and staff — eager to engage and support students. Palpable excitement for the future carried over to the incoming class.
“One of the students drove from San Diego to this event in Whittier to meet her roommate,” Gutierrez said. Patty Hill ’98, who attended the summer’s first event, still lives and works in Whittier as a physical education teacher. She liked seeing the first-year students, as well as the reconnection among alumni.
“It was a great outing,” Hill said. “It kind of rekindled a light in the love that went missing for a while.”
The tour headed next to New York City on July 20 and ended in Seattle on Aug. 13.