“Boarding a boat in Greece is like nothing you’ve ever experienced,” Professor Brett Rogers tells the bus passengers. “As soon as they lower the gangplank, it’s a mad dash. Hang onto your suitcase and just get on the boat!”

At age 22, just months after graduating from Puget Sound, Jennifer Cramer-Miller ’87 experienced a sudden, life-threatening disease—one that would lead to four kidney transplants over the next 20 years. In a book published this August, Cramer-Miller chronicles the uncertainty, her will to survive, and her determination to find joy. What follows is an excerpt from that book.

In the late 1970s, half a century after his own playing days were over, a former Puget Sound football player named Charlie Brady ’24 would drop by Baker Stadium on occasion to watch Logger football practices. He was retired, nearing the age of 80, and living within walking distance of campus. Brian Threlkeld ’83, an offensive lineman at the time, remembers Brady. “We’d all shake hands with him as we trotted out to practice, and he loved it.” In 1980 the team even invited Brady to fly with them to the season opener at Chico State, a 37-0 Logger win.

The James Robert Hanssen, the world-record-setting 29-foot rowboat that crossed the Atlantic twice (almost), ended its storied life at a boatyard in Port Townsend, Wash., on June 5, 2023. The cause was structural fatigue and homelessness. She was 17.

Walking away after the memorial celebration, a woman among the hundred-or-so present was overheard saying: “When I came this morning I said to myself, I am not going to cry at a boat funeral. I am not going to cry at a boat funeral. But I did!” Other people wept, too.

Benita Ki ’11 never figured on staying in Tacoma after graduating from Puget Sound. But the city’s spirit of community drew her in, compelling her to put down some roots, and that same spirit has driven her to become something of an accidental entrepreneur. Five years ago, with two business partners, she started Civic Roasters, a Tacoma-based coffee roastery with a strong interest in social justice.

Since Carol Petrich Kalapus ’51 turned 94 in May, she’s had to slow down a bit. For her, that means just a daily ride on her three-wheel bicycle along the Tacoma waterfront, regular swims in her pool, and kayaking in lakes instead of in the Puget Sound as she used to.

Puget Sound has been sending a newsletter to alumni since 1929, though back then it was typewritten and copied on a mimeograph machine. The masthead said, "Issued Quarterly (we hope)." The name Arches dates to fall 1973, making 2023 our 50th birthday. Early versions of Arches were newspaper-like; the full-color magazine debuted in 2000. Here’s a sampling of Arches covers from the past 50 years.

This summer, a small group of University of Puget Sound students spent a week backpacking across the Olympic Peninsula, challenging themselves physically and mentally—and learning about the ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest in the process.