Woodbury celebrated its past, present and future at its first wide-scale alumni reunion in years on Saturday, March 10. A wide range of alumni, from recent graduates to those who attended the university when it was still located in downtown Los Angeles, came to the event, alongside current members of Woodbury’s student government, ASWU. The most senior alumnus in attendance, Rosalind J. Henneman (pictured above, in blue), attended the university in 1937-38 and is nearing her one hundredth birthday. She will receive an honorary degree from Woodbury on May 5 at the InnerVision Fashion Show.
“While I’m very proud of our history, and the fact that we have so many alumni here today from well into our past,” President David Steele-Figueredo told the gathering, “I’m also very pleased to see so many young alumni taking part as well.”
Woodbury honored 1969 business graduate and long-time member of the university’s Board of Trustees, Bill Thomas, with a Distinguished Alumnus award at the event. Thomas, who was a founding member of the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity while he was at Woodbury, was also presented with a framed certificate from the national Delta Sigma Phi headquarters by fellow alumnus Thomas Sale, a 2009 graduate of the School of Business.
Damon Griffin, director of annual giving and alumni relations at the university, was the MC for the program, which also included brief comments by current scholarship student Andy Barrales. A portion of the ticket price for the Alumni Reunion was used to provide scholarship support for students.
“I want alumni to know that, no matter which campus they graduated from or where in the world they are living today, we are one Woodbury and they are part of the Woodbury family,” Griffin said. “Our doors are always open to our alumni.”
The reunion offered alumni the opportunity to reconnect with Woodbury and their fellow graduates from throughout the years. It even offered two alumni from Villa Cabrini Academy, the Catholic girls school that had previously been located on the Burbank campus of Woodbury, a chance to reconnect.
“As they say, ‘it takes a village’ to be successful,” President Steele said. “And we’re grateful to have such a range of support from our alumni—both new and established—who will partner with us as we move ahead and continue to build on Woodbury’s success.”