It’s November 1926. The New York Rangers and Chicago Blackhawks play their first NHL games. The Balfour Report declares that Canada is no longer subordinate to Britain. And at Queen’s, alumni stream back to Kingston for the very first Homecoming – and a unanimous vote that would shape alumni life for the next century.
By all accounts, that Homecoming kickoff was, as the Queen’s Journal called it, a “big success.” More than 850 grads and former students registered, joined by about 600 family members and friends. Highlights included Queen’s beating the University of Toronto 3-1 in football, a fancy Armistice Ball, and the result of that unanimous vote at a special alumni convention: the formation of an alumni association.
For a growing university and an alumni body surging past 6,000, that decision was huge. There was a real thirst for reconnection at Queen’s at the time, and university leaders were clear that alumni had helped build Queen’s and would be essential to its future.
As the association’s first president, Robert Oliver Sweezey, wrote in the first issue of Queen’s Alumni Review a few months later, “The formation of our General Alumni Association is an indication of our desire to identify ourselves with those influences that will make the future of Queen’s well worthy of the noble traditions of her past.”
A century later, what’s now the Queen’s University Alumni Association (QUAA) is still going strong. Those founding ideas – recognizing alumni for shaping Queen’s past and connecting them to its future – remain central to its work. Every Queen’s grad is automatically a member, as are former students who completed at least one full academic year. Through worldwide events, community initiatives, and volunteer opportunities, the QUAA helps alumni stay engaged with each other and the university.
That Homecoming vote in November 1926 had been years in the making. Alumni leaders had surveyed grads across North America, but it wasn’t until the mid-1920s – during a major university-wide fundraising campaign – when travelling Queen’s reps discovered a serious desire for a more organized connection with their alma mater.
Right away, Queen’s Principal Robert Bruce Taylor saw the significance of what had been created. He called the development of the alumni association “the greatest result of the present Campaign,” noting how important it was for the university’s growing alumni body to be “thoroughly informed of what is being attempted, and invited to contribute its experience and interest.”
Following the Homecoming vote in 1926, alumni association president Sweezey posed a question to his fellow alumni and to Queen’s itself: “Then what of the future?”
His answer was clear: “We are building for future generations,” he wrote, confident that the combined influence of the entire Queen’s community would carry the university forward “far beyond anything that we can conceive of to-day.”
One hundred years later, that spirit lives on. The university has grown, but the heart of the QUAA remains much the same – rooted in connection, shared responsibility, and a belief that Queen’s alumni are not just part of the university’s history, but active partners in shaping what comes next.
Learn more about the QUAA and the many ways to stay connected.
