Harvard Club of Philadelphia

President's Message . . .  

September 2022

Dear Harvard Alumni,

A new school year has begun up in Cambridge, and with that we kick off our new year at the Harvard Club of Philadelphia. When I wrote to you a year ago, having just assumed Presidency of the Club, we vowed to return to in-person events and revitalize our community in Philadelphia, but were unsure how you would respond. I am proud that we hosted almost 40 events last year - both in-person and virtual - and every person we met was thrilled to be back with the Harvard community. It was wonderful to see those of you I hadn’t seen in a while and meet those of you new to the city or the Club.

This year, we will continue with the theme of Community Re-engagement. We want to hear from you, and we want you to meet each other. We want to re-establish the Harvard connections we missed during the early stages of the Pandemic. The more we interact with each other - the more vibrant our community continues to be. Please feel free to reach out here with any thoughts or comments on what you would like to see from the Club and let us know how we can best serve you.

If you haven’t already, we hope you will join or renew your club membership (click here). For your convenience, this year we have added an auto-renewal option to simplify the membership process. Your dues enable us to cover our operating overhead and support initiatives such as the Harvard Prize Book for area high school juniors, conducting Admissions Interviews for area applicants to the college, and The Harvard Club of Philadelphia Scholarship Fund supporting Harvard Freshmen from our area. Your membership entitles you to discounted tickets to all of our ticketed events.

We have a terrific slate of events lined up for this fall - see a full listing of events here: 

• October 6th: Our Fall Opener, the official kick-off to our season, will feature a converstion with Philadelphia 76ers Owner, Investor, and noted Philanthropist, Josh Harris, MBA ‘90 at the Loews Hotel. 
    
• Sept 22nd: For art lovers, we will have an exclusive tour of the PAFA Cast Hall with a Wine and Cheese reception
    
• Sept 29th: Welcome to Your City at Victory Brewing will give us a chance to welcome recent graduates and those new to Philadelphia to our community   

For sports lovers… we will revive our traditions of supporting the Crimson at the Harvard/Penn Football tailgate, our Annual Harvard-Yale viewing party, and at Harvard/Penn Basketball;

For outdoor lovers… we will continue our walks with another Tour of Penn’s campus among other hikes.

For those of you not yet ready to venture out… we will also continue to host virtual speaker events with speakers lined up in October and November;

If events are not your thing, consider signing up to be an Alumni interviewer (click here) - with the huge uptick in the number of applicants to the freshman class, more interviewers enable us to offer interviews to a larger percentage of local applicants. 

We truly aim to have something for everyone, but if you have an idea that’s not on our list, please reach out and suggest it here. You may see some of our event costs are higher than they've been in the past to cover increased costs in the hospitality industry.  Our goal is that the Harvard Club of Philadelphia be an inclusive and accessible community for its members. If there is an event of special interest that does not fit your financial circumstances at the time, please email us at programs@hrcphilly.com and we’ll work with you to make it happen.

I look forward to engaging with all of you this Fall and can’t wait to see what we can learn from each other this year.

Warmly,

Melanie Sheerr, AB ‘00

President, Harvard Club of Philadelphia

Join or Renew Your Membership Today!!!!