Gray skies couldn’t dampen the excitement surrounding a new tradition for first-year students on Emory’s Atlanta campus: the inaugural Gate Crossing and Coke Toast, held on Monday.
Members of the Class of 2026 attending Emory College gathered as a group and walked through the iconic Haygood-Hopkins Gate together, with faculty, staff, fellow students and alumni cheering them on. They proceeded to the Quad, where President Gregory L. Fenves led them in a Coca-Cola Toast.
“My hope is that over the next four years, you will come to see Emory as a living laboratory where you are inspired to grow and discover, where new ideas will take root, and your imagination and your ambitions take flight,” Fenves told students, before everyone raised their iconic glass bottles in the air.
“Here’s to the Class of 2026 — to the learning you will accomplish, to the friends you will make and to the horizons you will soar above at Emory University,” the president said, as students cheered and bottles clinked. “Cheers to the Class of 2026.”
