Between May 2 and May 4, Sidwell hosted Alumni Weekend for graduating classes ending in zero or five.
The Alumni Office organized the celebration, scheduling a series of speakers and engagement workshops for returning alumni.
Starting with a kickoff lunch with the class of 1975, returning alumni met with Upper School Principal Robert Gross in the Zartman Garden before breaking up into different workshops.
According to the Sidwell Friends website, these workshops included a preview of Equity, Justice and Community Director Natalie Randolph’s “Metropolitan Policy and the DMV” class and the “50 Years of Horizon” panel between the original and current Senior Editorial Board, providing alumni an opportunity to engage in different topics in the community.
Later, alumni were led on a tour of the current campus before reconvening in the Robert Lawrence Smith Meeting Room to watch a virtual tour of the new Upper School campus under construction. The first day finished with each group’s cocktail night and class photos.
The class of 2020 had a significantly large turnout on Friday, being the most recent graduating class in attendance and the only class that missed its traditional Commencement ceremony because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Sidwell Friends website explained.
Saturday’s celebration started with service work in the cafeteria, where alumni organized care packages for younger children. Following the service project, alumni toured the Upton Campus. That evening, the Alumni Office organized a dinner, dancing and an award ceremony.
According to the Sidwell Friends website, four alumni received the Distinguished Alumni Award: Sonya Clark ’85, Tia Powell ’75, Grace Dammann ’65 and Toba Spitzer ’80.
Clark is an art professor at Amherst College, where she studied textiles as a student. Powell attended Harvard University for undergraduate studies, Yale University for medical school and Columbia University for her fellowship. Since then, she has been a medical school professor and a psychiatrist and now serves as the Executive Director of Bioethics in New York.
Dammann started medical school at 35 and founded the AIDS unit at Laguna Honda Hospital in 1990.
Shortly after this achievement, Dammann was hit by a car on the Golden Gate Bridge, leaving her unconscious for 48 days and hospitalized for 14 months.
After filing a lawsuit that called for a meridian barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge, she became the Director of the Pain Clinic at Laguna Honda Hospital and is currently ordained as a Zen Buddhist Priest.
Spitzer, the final recipient, has been a rabbi in her congregation for 28 years, publishing a book on her religious perspectives and engaging in issues related to the Israel–Palestine conflict.
