Over 100 UM-Flint alums joined us for an Alumni Homecoming Gala at the Flint Institute of Arts to celebrate UM-Flint’s original graduating class of 1958.
Seventy years ago, the University of Michigan-Flint began with a bold vision and a pioneering group of students whose stories would shape the future of our campus. To celebrate the college’s 70th anniversary, we invited former students to return and honor the legacy they helped create. We proudly recognized alumni from UM-Flint’s original graduating class of 1958, along with alumni celebrating milestone reunions of 50 years or more.
The evening included a light dinner, refreshments, dancing, and a brief program.
At the event, attendees learned about the IHP’s 1956 Project, which is exploring the university’s inaugural class. Through oral histories, archival collections, and events like this one, the project is preserving the stories of UM-Flint’s earliest alumni for generations of Wolverines to come.
Alums were encouraged to bring their photographs, programs, or keepsakes from their earliest days at UM-Flint. The Genesee Historical Collections Center at UM-Flint was on site to scan and photograph materials on the spot, helping preserve the university’s earliest history for generations to come.
Photos, posters, flyers, recordings, ticket stubs, journals, diaries, keepsakes, and memorabilia were welcome. Attendees could donate items to the archives or have our team digitize them while they were there.
A Blue Carpet Affair: The Stories that Shaped Us Alumni Homecoming Gala was co-presented by the UM-Flint 70th Anniversary Committee, Alumni Relations, and the Inclusive History Project.
Image: University of Michigan-Flint College students and faculty preparing for their first Homecoming in 1958. (Blue has been added). Courtesy of Genesee Historical Collections Center, Frances Willson Thompson Library, UM-Flint