UM alumna Maggie Rodriguez, who served as homecoming parade grand marshal, rides with Sebastian the Ibis.

For some of the University of Miami alumni who returned to campus last Friday for annual Homecoming festivities, their visit started in the same place it did when they embarked upon their college careers: in the classroom.

The Audrey R. Finkelstein Experience, the interactive, educational series that grew out of an endowment established in 1988 by the late UM alumna and her husband, Charles, enabled alums to share the experience of today’s UM students.

In lectures given by some of the institution’s top faculty members, UM’s sons and daughters learned about the future impact of engineering innovations, how disease outbreaks can be predicted using climate-based models, how music therapy can be used to help patients with disease or injury of the central nervous system, and other topics.

It was one of the many highlights of an activity-filled 2011 Alumni Weekend and Homecoming. Returning alumni attended school, college, and class reunions; toured the Coral Gables campus and the Robert and Judi Prokop Newman Alumni Center, a home away from home for graduates; experienced Alumni Avenue, which included food and affinity groups; and marveled at the elaborately decorated floats in the parade along Ponce de Leon Boulevard and Stanford Drive. A pep rally, boat-burning ceremony, and fireworks display also were held.

Maggie Rodriguez, B.S.C. ’91, served as grand marshal for this year’s Alumni Weekend and Homecoming, leading the parade along with UM President Donna E. Shalala, Sebastian the Ibis, the Band of the Hour, and the Hurricane cheerleaders. Rodriguez was most recently co-anchor of CBS’s The Early Show and a substitute anchor for Katie Couric on The CBS Evening News. She previously co-anchored the Saturday edition of The Early Show.

Friday’s Homecoming concert, held at BankUnited Center, featured Ludacris with special guest Rudy Currence.

On Saturday the UM Alumni Association held its Pregame Celebration at Sun Life Stadium before the start of the UM-Duke Homecoming game, a 49-14 Miami victory. And on Sunday the 35th Annual Golden Ibis Society Celebration Brunch was held at the Newman Alumni Center.

The slate of events throughout Alumni Weekend and Homecoming were organized and sponsored by the University of Miami Alumni Association, Office of Alumni Relations, Division of Student Affairs, and Student Affairs Homecoming Committee.

See the Alumni Weekend and Homecoming photo gallery below: