InsightOut: Come Home to St. Michael’s: Why This Spring Reunion Matters

Larry Cimino is the President of ProConsult, LLC, a strategic global management and logistics consultancy focused primarily on mental health and mental illness and is the Global Program Director for the Dialogue on Diabetes and Depression in Geneva, Switzerland. He graduated from St. Michael’s College in 1973 with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and has remained active in the St. Michael’s alumni community. He sits on the Alumni Advisory Board of Directors and chairs the Alumni Reunion Committee. In 2023, he was honoured with the inaugural Spirit of Saint Mike’s Award. Larry is a lifetime member of the World Federation for Mental Health and served on its board of directors for eight years. He lives in the Indianapolis area with his wife Joan; together they have four sons and six grandchildren.

There’s a particular quality of light that falls across a college quad in spring—the way it illuminates pathways you once walked between classes, catches the edges of buildings where you studied late into the night, filters through trees that have grown taller since you last stood beneath them. That light is waiting for you this spring at St. Michael’s College, and it’s calling you home.

In an era defined by digital connection and physical isolation, when we scroll through updates about old friends rather than sitting across from them, when isolation and loneliness have become what some health experts call an epidemic, the annual spring reunion offers something increasingly rare and precious: the chance to be together, in person, in the place where many of us first discovered who we were becoming.

The pandemic taught us many things, but perhaps most poignantly it revealed what we lose when we’re apart. Video calls can’t replicate the warmth of an embrace, the spontaneous laughter that erupts over a shared drink or snack in the COOP, or the way a familiar voice sounds when it’s not compressed through a screen. This Spring Reunion is an antidote to that isolation—a deliberate act of choosing presence over convenience, community over solitude.

When you return to St. Mike’s this spring, you’ll rediscover what drew you to this community in the first place. You’ll reconnect with classmates who once filled your days with conversation and debate, laughter and late-night philosophical wandering. Some friendships may have faded over the years, not from lack of care but simply from the relentless momentum of adult life. The reunion offers a rare permission to pause that momentum, to pick up threads of connection that have been waiting patiently for your return.

But this gathering isn’t merely about looking backward. Among the familiar faces, you’ll encounter younger alumni—recent graduates navigating the same uncertain transitions you once faced. Here is your opportunity to offer what you once needed: encouragement, perspective, perhaps even professional opportunities that could change the trajectory of a career. The wisdom you’ve accumulated through years of experience becomes a gift when shared. These intergenerational connections don’t just benefit the younger alumni; they remind us of our own journeys, of how far we’ve traveled, and of the community that helped launch us into the world.

Walking through campus, you’ll experience a unique temporal duality. The chapel, the library, the corners where you first encountered ideas that changed you—these endure. Yet St. Michael’s has evolved too, responding to new generations and new challenges. You’ll discover renovated spaces, new facilities, dramatic sculptures, programs that didn’t exist during your college years. Learning about the major capital projects planned for the future connects you to the university’s ongoing story, a narrative you helped write and one that continues beyond your chapter.

This evolution reflects a deeper truth: St. Michael’s isn’t a museum of your past, but a living institution relevant to your present and future. The reunion introduces you to opportunities for lifelong learning, ways to keep the university’s intellectual energy flowing through your life. Perhaps it’s attending lectures by distinguished faculty, engaging with current research, or discovering continuing education programs. The institution that once formed you continues to offer resources for your growth and transformation.

The scheduled tours will reveal both the familiar and the transformed. The lectures will challenge and stimulate. But the most valuable moments may be the unscheduled ones—the spontaneous conversations over coffee, the unexpected reunions in hallways, the stories exchanged during dinner. These organic interactions, impossible to replicate from afar, are where community truly comes alive.

We are, at our core, social beings driven by deep-seated needs: to pursue good together rather than alone, to cooperate toward shared purposes, to care for one another, and ultimately to belong. These aren’t abstract philosophical ideals but fundamental human hungers. The reunion satisfies these hungers in ways that our increasingly fragmented, digitized world often cannot.

St. Michael’s shaped us during those formative years when we were becoming ourselves. It provided not just education but community, not just knowledge but belonging. That gift doesn’t expire. The relationships forged, the values explored, the sense of being part of something larger than ourselves—these remain available to us, but only if we choose to return.

This spring, choose presence. Choose community. Choose to walk those familiar pathways, to embrace old friends and welcome new ones, to remember who you were and celebrate who you’ve become. Mark your calendar. Plan your return.

St. Michael’s is waiting, and so is the light.

St. Michael’s College welcomes its alumni back for Alumni Reunion, which will take place from June 19 – 20.

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