The Gartes’ Hamily ties transcend decades, class years, and life paths. When they return to the Hill for Reunion Weekend, as they do regularly, the flood of nostalgia reminds Peggy of the profound shared experiences that unite alumni.
“I think when you come back to reunions, it's kind of crystallized for everyone that, spanning these decades, you have this common experience,” she said. “And it's pretty powerful. Not only did you all eat in Commons and sing the alma mater and sit in the sun on the quad, but you have much deeper things in common, like the same professors, some of the same ideologies, and just the things that have formed us as people.”
The Gartes started attending the 1812 Leadership Circle Weekend shortly after they graduated, where they met and developed close relationships with older alumni who inspired them to give back to Hamilton as donors and as volunteers, including on the Alumni Council. Peggy’s involvement with HCN allows her to pay forward the support and guidance she is grateful to have received from previous generations of Hamiltonians.
“I feel like [volunteering] keeps me connected to campus,” she said. “It keeps me connected to the current students — I feel like I have maybe more of a pulse on them than most people. And then there’s definitely the group of friends that we've made through doing this. Now, when we go back to campus, we have a completely separate group of friends in addition to our classmates that we see more frequently, even, than our classmates. I think they've served as mentors to us, and we have as mentors to younger generations, and it spans many decades now.”
Peggy also believes strongly in the power of affinities, from academic concentrations to campus clubs to shared identities, to create lifelong bonds. She feels that her role on the Alumni Council grew organically out of her own experiences with affinity reunions.
In a classic example of a liberal arts education, Peggy studied geosciences and dance at Hamilton before heading to law school. When a cluster of geosciences professors retired around 2023, the department threw something of a joint retirement party at reunions that year.
“With the affinity reunions, I think it's super cool to be able to do the things that you loved to do as a student,” Peggy said. “It’s such a core memory for me now to have gone back out into the field with [Professor of Geosciences Emeritus] Dave Bailey, my mineralogy and petrology professor, at the geosciences reunion. And it was like we were all, a span of many years of geo students, having that experience again with him.”
In 2024, the Adirondack Adventure program celebrated its 40th anniversary, a milestone that Peggy, a former AA leader, also enjoyed.
“It was just all flashbacks and fun and just definitely warm, familial feelings when you do something like that,” she said. “I could see the swim team diving into the pool together again, and people interested in art really exploring what art means at Hamilton now — all of those things are what make reunions so great.”
