McCosh Hall
10

Sponsored by the Alumni Association of Princeton University

Moderator

Dan Linke
University Archivist and Deputy Head of Special Collections

Panelists

Bob Durkee ’69
Vice President and Secretary, Emeritus, Princeton University

Melvin McCray, Jr. ’74
Director, Digital Media Training Program     

Gary Michael King ’79
Retired, IT Services Manager, IBM Corporation

Abby Klionsky ’14
Preschool Teacher, Akiba-Schechter Jewish Day School

Moderator

Dan Linke
University Archivist and Deputy Head of Special Collections

Dan Linke worked at the Cleveland History Center, the University of Oklahoma and the New York State Archives before he became an assistant archivist at Princeton’s Mudd Manuscript Library in 1994. In 2002, Linke was promoted to university archivist and curator of the Public Policy Papers collection. In 2020, he was named university archivist and deputy head of Special Collections. In this role, he continues to be responsible for the Princeton University Archives and the Public Policy Papers. Linke has acquired over 100 collections, including the papers of U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley ’65, civil rights and Watergate lawyer John Doar ’44 and former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker ’49. A graduate of Case Western Reserve University, where he also earned a master’s, Linke is the co-author of the forthcoming “Princeton Trivia Book” published by Lyons Press.

Panelists

Bob Durkee ’69
Vice President and Secretary, Emeritus, Princeton University

As an undergraduate, Bob Durkee was editor in chief of The Daily Princetonian and an on-the-campus columnist for the Princeton Alumni Weekly. After teaching fifth and sixth grades in Trenton, New Jersey, for three years, he returned to Princeton in 1972 as assistant to the president. In 1978 he was named vice president for public affairs, overseeing offices of communications; federal, state and local affairs; and the Alumni Council. In 2004 he added the role of vice president and secretary, with responsibility for the work of the Board of Trustees. He retired in 2019. His Princeton University Press book, “The New Princeton Companion,” was published in 2022.\

Melvin McCray Jr. ’74
Director, Digital Media Training Program

Melvin McCray Jr. was an editor at ABC’s “World News Tonight” with anchor Peter Jennings for 28 years. He received a Monitor Award, four duPont-Columbia Awards, an Emmy Award and the George Foster Peabody Award. McCray has taught broadcast journalism for 12 years at the Columbia Journalism School. He also taught at Princeton for four semesters, including an appointment as Ferris Professor of Journalism in the fall of 1999. McCray has produced and directed more than seven films on the history of the Black experience at Princeton, including “Looking Back: Reflections of Black Princeton Alumni” in 1997 and “Facing Slavery: Princeton Family Stories” in 2017. His latest Princeton-based film was “The Historic Class of 1973” in May 2023 for their 50th reunion. McCray runs a production company, Media Genesis Solutions, and is the director of the Digital Media Training Program, a nonprofit based in New York City.

Gary Michael King ’79
Retired, IT Services Manager, IBM Corporation

Gary King worked at the IBM Corporation for more than 32 years supporting a variety of clients across many industries as an IT services manager. King has been a lifelong Princeton volunteer, serving on the Class of 1979’s 5th, 20th, 30th and 40th Reunions committees, and co-chairing the 35th. He was class president from 2014 to 2019 and became class historian in 2009. He has served on the Alumni Council Executive Committee as chair of the Committee on Awards for Service to Princeton (2010-11) and as vice chair of the Princetoniana Committee (2013-15), then chair (2017-19). He served as national treasurer for the Princeton Prize in Race Relations (2011-17). In 2019, he narrated the P-rade, then narrated the “V-rades” of 2020 and 2021. Gary was inducted into the Society of the Claw in 2014 and received the ABPA Service Award in 2014 and the Award for Service to Princeton in 2016.

Abby Klionsky ’14
Preschool Teacher, Akiba-Schechter Jewish Day School

Abby Klionsky decided to become a preschool teacher after attending an event at the “She Roars” conference. At the time, she was working as a public historian at Princeton, having written her undergraduate thesis on the development of Jewish student life at Princeton and providing the research basis for the “L’Chaim” conference. As a public historian, Klionsky spearheaded the University’s effort to tell the stories of those excluded from its historical narrative in the past by researching, writing and curating previously untold histories and developing partnerships across the campus community. She built a collection of digital walking tours (bit.ly/PrincetonHistoryTours), curated exhibits, consulted on new historical markers and advised the University’s social media strategy. She authored several introductory essays for the 2022 edition of “The New Princeton Companion” by Robert Durkee.