From Friday, May 1 to Saturday, May 2, 2026, Poly hosted the annual Alumni Weekend to connect graduates across all classes. On campus, Head of School John Bracker delivered a State of the School address, student ambassadors led campus tours and alumni shared insights through a roundtable panel.
In addition, Poly held dinners and parties on and off campus for classes celebrating reunion milestones of five-year intervals.
“So many people are connected to the school in so many ways, and it creates this really tight community. Alumni weekend is a time to celebrate that,” shared Jess Liu Eisenlohr ‘04, an Alumni Association Board Member who helped organize the events.
Every year, select alumni return to share their career experience at a roundtable discussion with the rest of the community. This year, the theme was “Human Rights,” and the panel featured four alumni: Carolyn Gan ’99, Executive Director of California Partners Project, an organization focused on gender equity and child well-being; Saira Mohamed ’96, Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley; Casey Revkin ’95, Executive Director of Each Step Home, an organization dedicated to helping children impacted by immigration policy; and Katelyn Kuwata Wallace ’04, Deputy Attorney General for the Reproductive Justice Unit at the California Department of Justice. John Horn ’78, an arts journalist and correspondent for National Public Radio, moderated the panel.
“What we are really striving to do with most of [the roundtables] is in that current topic space—to be thought-provoking, but then also shine a spotlight on this amazing impact that our alumni are having on the world,” explained Executive Director of Alumni and Community Relations Emily Fischer.
Junior Alexandra Tan, who attended the roundtable, said, “It made me think more about how human rights are still a problem in the United States because we tend to think of it as more of a worry for third-world countries, but it really is a pressing issue closer to home as well.”
When asked for a takeaway from the discussion, Tan recommended to other students, “Stay informed about what is happening in the current world because it can sometimes seem so detached from our own lives, but it really isn’t.”
Alumni also reflected on how their education at Poly impacted later aspects of their lives.
“I studied Russian at Poly, and that was such an important experience. Learning about a culture that was so foreign, going and visiting a country at 15 years old that had been our enemy just a few years earlier,” noted panelist Revkin. “It really expanded my thought process of learning as more than just books, but also culture and getting to know other people.”
Sophomore and student ambassador Kaiden Thorell led campus tours for alumni on Saturday of Alumni Weekend.
“The main point of emphasis was ‘What is it like now?’— trying to compare how the Lower School was when they were there 20, 25 years ago, how it’s shifted,” Thorell recalled. “Connecting past generations to new students at Poly and the new community was definitely a strong theme and what the Alumni Weekend is about.”
