Aug 20, 2026

Finding More Tuck, Together

By Tuck Communications

Members of Six Women of Tuck—Caren Calish Gagliano T’75, Laurie Marshall T’88, Laura Fuller T’96, Eve Marhafer Meek T’01, Heather Onstott Perrygo T’07, and Emma Zhang T’16—have continued gathering virtually and in person since first connecting through a Tuck Alumni Lifelong Learning event in 2020.

At the recent Spring 2026 reunion for the classes of 2006, 2011, and 2016, Dean Matthew Slaughter shared, “The world needs more Tuck.” 

It does. In big ways: wise corporate leaders, compassionate public servants, invested mentors, and parents raising the next generation of smart and kind world citizens. But also in small ways: managers modeling integrity in tough decisions, townspeople supporting neighbors in need, and, of course, newer Tuck alumni seeking guidance with their careers. 

These big and small ways focus on giving. But how does receiving fit into “the world needs more Tuck”? What can we gain from each other? As the Tuck community came together to celebrate 50 years of women at Tuck, our group of Tuck alumnae found one another and stumbled into the most rewarding part of Tuck: that thing we call Tucklove. 

Tucklove is the community that makes Tuck special, both as students and as alumni. It is reaching out to classmates when you travel, finding other Tuckies when you move to a new city or join a new firm, and rekindling or building these relationships after so many years away from Hanover. Things are different, but those bonds are solid building blocks for something new in any phase of life. 

In 2020, the COVID pandemic did perhaps its greatest damage by isolating us from one another. We put up physical barriers to protect ourselves, hid our facial expressions behind masks, and barely left the safety of our homes. As the months wore on, life slowly started to go back to normal. Loneliness from isolation was still at all-time highs, even as Tuck was building plans to celebrate 50 Years of Women at Tuck (Shout out to Martha Fransson T’70—Tuck’s first woman graduate!). Of course, the pandemic changed many reunion plans that year, including celebrations of Tuck women. Enter a Tuck Alumni Lifelong Learning (TALL) virtual event series in September, where more than 100 busy Tuck women set their lives aside to reconnect and “Own Our Stories.” We all needed it. That is what each of us recalls thinking when we joined that first meeting.

September 10, 2020

The original directive was telling our stories—past, present, and future—and a few of us confess to dreading the belated realization that it was more than a single-session commitment. But our group clicked. Here was a group of women who had left Tuck anywhere from four to 43 years ago, with similar values, similar aspirations, giving natures, and a great deal of humor. So September 24 came, and we just kept going: every two weeks, connecting with our own BBBs (Boast Bummer, By-the-way) and learning from one another’s experience. We committed to one another, to prioritizing the time together, and it stuck. 

We coined the name for our group: Six Women of Tuck (S.W.O.T.), attacking our individual SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats), spread across five decades of the Tuck experience, with completely different careers, life experiences, and geographies. We are Caren Calish Gagliano T’75, Laurie Marshall T’88, Laura Fuller T’96, Eve Marhafer Meek T’01, Heather Onstott Perrygo T’07, and Emma Zhang T’16. 

What does our S.W.O.T. Tucklove really look like today? It’s the inspiration to leave that big tech company where you’re doing well and risk a new career path where you can thrive. It’s the support for leaving the job you’ve held since Tuck graduation and taking a breath. It’s the empathy, tips, and tricks for balancing caring for aging parents while you’re still making dinner for your own family. It’s the shared pride of kids stepping onto a meaningful path forward. It’s not only the practical advice of “been there, done that” wisdom, but also the celebration of new experiences we all learn from. We are inspired by each other: our travel, our personal wins, our exposure to different perspectives from different political views, geographies, and cultures. We cross-pollinate one another’s lives with new ideas sparked by our individual challenges and triumphs. In short, we make each other’s lives bigger by sharing our own lives, whether in a Google Meet, on a birthday cruise, or relaxing on a SWOTtie’s porch or gazebo. 

So how do you find your own Tucklove? Start small. Form your own class WhatsApp thread and post pictures from Tuck classmate meetups. Track down your roommate(s) and set a standing Zoom. Design annual retreats around golfing, boating, or hiking, and enlist the usual—and unusual—suspects. Create that personal advisory board your career coach says you need, and make it one you actually look forward to joining. Commit. Show up. Participate. Laugh. Because the world really does need more Tuck. 

 This story originally appeared in print in the Summer 2026 issue of Tuck Today magazine.