On Oct. 5, Urban held its fifth-ever all-alumni reunion. Two hundred thirty-five graduates from the classes of 1969 to 2020 gathered on campus for the reunion, with more than half of the class of 1969 — Urban’s first graduating class — in attendance.
Activities included a basketball tournament in the Salkind Center, a garden party and student-led campus tours, including a look at the new Performing Arts + Community Center. For many, the reunion marked their first visit to Urban’s campus since graduation, prompting reflection on their experiences as students.
Urban had its first school year in 1966 in a building now known as the Church of Christ-Iglesia Ni Cristo. Janice Quinn ’69 said, “We started in 1966 in a church called the Christian Science Church on the corner of Divisadero and Washington.”
Despite its foundations in a church, Urban established itself as an independent school that was alternative and progressive, with a small student body reflective of its ethos. “In those days, you could not, as a girl, go to [most] schools without wearing a dress. You could never wear pants to school. So one of the things that we all thought was fabulous was the fact that [Urban] said we could wear anything,” Quinn said. “One day, me and a gal both wore bikinis to school … and [the principal], Mr. Tidy, let us sit and freeze our little butts off until we finally decided to put our clothes on. But he did not tell us anything. Nobody [at Urban] said anything.”
Urban’s flexibility extended to academics, where students could choose what they studied. “For our classes, we did choose what we wanted to learn, but it had to be really hard,” Quinn said. “We decided to read everything that John Steinbeck ever wrote. And we read the New Testament in the Bible.”
Elliott Donnelly ’84 was one of many alumni who reflected on the joys of directing their own learning. “Part of the reason why I chose Urban was because you had this incredible flexibility. You had this incredible freedom,” he said.
Urban designated the month of April as Project Month — a month for students to pursue independent projects on topics of their interest. “While you had to get the project approved, you could pretty well do whatever you wanted,” John Steinberg ’84 said. Steinberg went on an archaeology expedition to Belize in his junior year, returning his senior year with other Urban students.
For Steinberg, the experiences that came with Urban’s nontraditional approach to education inspired his career path. “Forty years later, I am still doing the same thing,” he said. “I now have a PhD, lots of projects and grants under my belt, but I am still doing archaeological surveys and bringing fellow students with me. It all started at Urban, and I am so thankful for all the wonderful teachers that gave me my start.”
Quinn shared a memorable lesson from her junior year English teacher, Albert “Bill” W. Meyer, Jr. Meyer taught poetry by Dylan Thomas, whom Quinn initially disliked. “I told Mr. Meyer, ‘I just can’t stand this guy.’ He said, ‘Janice, I am not teaching you for right now, when you’re 17 years old. I’m teaching you for when you’re 40.’”
Quinn, now 73, reflected on the lasting inspiration she took from Urban’s teachers. She has recently set out to read every Pulitzer Prize-winning book for fiction, a quest that she connected back to her junior year English class. She said, “I wrote [Mr. Meyer] a letter and said, ‘You are not going to believe it, but you were right. You taught me English to enjoy and experience throughout my whole life, and you changed my life.’”
