For the past 26 years, alumni and their families have gathered on the Saturday of reunion weekend to follow retired biology professor Ron Hoham across campus. Walking backward — “I’ve gotten better at it over the years,” he says — Hoham guides the group through Colgate’s tree canopy, stopping beneath trees to discuss everything from species selection and invasive pests to climate change. In recent years, the crowds have continued to grow, says Hoham, who notes that his most recent tour drew more than 100 alumni; for the first time, he wore a wireless microphone so everyone could hear.
The tree walk tradition began informally back in 2000, when biology alumna Beth Meer ’80 asked if Hoham would lead a campus landscape tour for her class’s 20th Reunion. Hoham agreed, and word spread quickly. “The number of alumni on that first walk was something like 45, and I expected less than a dozen,” Hoham recalls.
By 2001 he’d asked the advancement staff to put the tree walk on the reunion schedule, and he has led it every year since, except during COVID-19. (The following year, he made up for it — and led the walk twice.)
After the 2022 walk, Meer learned that several of Colgate’s Bicentennial trees — 200 trees planted as part of the Third-Century Plan’s campus renewal efforts — were still available for dedication. Sponsoring one would cover the costs of planting and care. Hoping to dedicate a tree in Hoham’s honor, Meer emailed former classmates to rally support. “I think it is safe to say that Ron has a personal relationship with every tree on campus,” Meer wrote, calling her former professor “our resident Lorax.”
Meer and Deb Roberts ’80 shared the idea more widely at Reunion 2025 and over the following months, contacted more than 100 alumni and friends, inviting them to participate and to share stories about their former professor and mentor. The goal, Meer wrote, was to “offer you the opportunity to honor Ron while he is still with us.”
The responses quickly outpaced expectations. Alumni recalled hands-on ecology lessons, fieldwork in Montana, and research paper drafts returned dense with red ink. One donor wrote, “Ron basically strong-armed an oblivious first-year student — me — to work in his lab, and without that, I would not have found my path.”
By fall the effort had grown enough to dedicate four trees, positioned as a small grove along the sidewalk between the Coop and Andrews Hall. The tree dedicated in Hoham’s honor is a northern catalpa, his favorite. For the other three, Hoham chose to dedicate a swamp white oak to the late Oran B. Stanley, the professor who hired him in 1971; a yellow buckeye for Stephen C. Roemer ’75, an early research collaborator; and a northern pin oak for the alumni and former students who made the grove possible.
The dedication will take place during Reunion 2026 — following, fittingly, another tree walk.
“I’m going to get emotional over it, I think,” Hoham says. “It’s a real tribute.”
Deb Roberts ’80 (left) and Beth Meer ’80 (right) with Professor Ron Hoham