Sixty years on, the Class of 1966 keeps coming home

class of 66

Sixty years after graduating from Western Engineering, 11 members of the Class of 1966 returned for Homecoming this year. There was plenty to see on a campus transformed since their student days, but the greatest draw was the chance to see one another.

“Honestly, we come back for our fellow engineers. We love the tours and seeing what's happening with the faculty, but the biggest reason we keep coming is the chance to connect with each other,” said class leader Mike Smith.

For Smith and fellow graduate Jay Nusca, Homecoming continues a reunion tradition spanning decades. It is an opportunity to renew friendships formed through demanding coursework and shared experiences at a formative time in their lives.

Speaking ahead of this year’s gathering, Nusca reflected on his university years as a passage into adulthood.

“Western is where we came in as green teenagers and left as men. It was a changing point in our lives,” Nusca said.

Coming back also gives him a chance to see how today’s students are learning—and how their experiences differ from his own.

class of 66“For me, I've been struck by how interdisciplinary the work is now. It wasn't like that when we were coming through. And the last time we came to Homecoming we saw so many projects where they have people from so many faculties working together to make something meaningful,” Nusca said.

The tools available to students have changed just as dramatically. Smith recalled working on a wind tunnel project that required preparing punched cards, carrying them between campus buildings and waiting until the following day for the results.

“Something that would take maybe one second with the computer today would take us a whole day hauling these cards around,” he said.

On a previous Homecoming tour, Smith was particularly impressed by the spaces for collaboration in the Amit Chakma Engineering Building.

“One thing I noticed when we came to Homecoming last time and toured the Amit Chakma Engineering Building was that, while there were a few classrooms, the building was made up mostly of spaces for collaboration—spaces for students to come together,” Smith said.

“That’s a completely new orientation that we’ve seen. We didn’t have a place where students who were working on a project could share their ideas.”

While the tools and learning spaces have changed, both graduates still value the foundation their Western education gave them.

“I do think that discipline of logical thinking was really important in the rest of my career,” Nusca said.

They also recognize the importance of pairing technical knowledge with the ability to communicate. Nusca said earning an MBA helped him develop communication skills that became essential in his career. He is encouraged to see those skills receive more attention in engineering education.

“I’m so pleased to see how Western Engineering is evolving to include the business thinking and business communication aspects in their education,” he said.

Their classmate John Thompson has helped strengthen that connection. Thompson and his wife Melinda have supported the integration of engineering and business education for subsequent generations through the John M. Thompson Centre for Engineering Leadership and Innovation.

His contributions are part of a broader class legacy that includes Vicki Fecteau, who in 1966 became the first woman to graduate from Western Engineering.

Homecoming gives classmates a chance to celebrate that shared history, catch up on one another’s lives and meet students beginning journeys of their own.

For the Class of 1966, each visit offers something new to discover. The friendships formed six decades ago keep bringing them home.

Top photo from l-to-r: David Ledingham, Ronald Beath, Jack Warren, Dick Patrick, Dennis Bishop, Vicki Fecteau, Julian Nusca, Michael Smith, Dick Carey, Richard Butler, Dennis Gidley (Ayan Boghani/Western Engineering)