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There’s a lot to love about Homecoming and Family Weekend.

I love seeing alumni rediscover a place that was once the center of their lives. I love the reunions (planned and not-so-planned!) and the stories that begin with, “Do you remember when…?” I love watching former teammates on the sidelines again and hearing a yell across State Street that means two people are seeing each other for the first time in years. And I love catching that moment when someone is instantly transported back to being 20 years old.

At ���ϲ�����, Homecoming includes families, and there’s something poignant about watching them experience a campus that someone they love is beginning to call home. For a weekend, they get to see this new chapter up close.

This year, for the first time, I’m also the parent of an ���ϲ����� student.

Watching my child begin their first year, I’m seeing how the connections that bring alumni back to ���ϲ����� begin to take shape. Today’s students are having experiences that seem pretty ordinary: finding a favorite spot on campus, meeting new friends, discovering a class they love (or hate), going to a game, joining a club and, in the process, starting to figure out who they are.

They don’t know yet which of those moments will become the stories they tell years from now.

Make time to come back. Walk across campus. Go to a game. Take a photo with Sam the Ram. Find an old friend or make a new one. See what’s changed and what still feels familiar. Homecoming and Family Weekend is a chance to reconnect with a place that mattered, and with the ���ϲ����� community you’re still part of.

And while you’re here, smile at the students around you. Someday, they’ll be alumni coming home.

That’s Ram Pride.