When Mary Kate Neumuth ’25 (CLAS) graduates from UConn a year early in May, she will continue a three-generation tradition of Husky alumni in her family.

The Neumuth family is UConn through and through, as parents Jon Neumuth ’92 (CLAS) and Jessica Green Neumuth ’91 (CLAS) met as students in a math class in 1989. Jon works in marketing and Jessica is an elementary school teacher.

Mary Kate’s older brothers are both UConn graduates, too – Jack Neumuth ’22 (CLAS), earned his degree in communications and is a physical education teacher in Ellington; and Will Neumuth ’24 (CLAS) is an assistant clerk for the State of Connecticut Superior Court and will attend UConn Law this fall.

The Neumuth UConn lineage started with Jessica’s parents, Laura Buonocore Green ’70 (CLAS) and David Green, who met in an accounting class at UConn.

“My parents were there during the time of Vietnam and there were all kinds of protests on campus,” says Jessica. “It was an exciting time for them. My mother had gone to Catholic school her whole life and now she was with people with many different opinions. To be honest, the hippie culture had a big impact on both of them.”

Jon and Jessica have great memories of their UConn experience as students in 1990s.

“I loved UConn, and for us it was like a little city, even though it was only 15 minutes away from where we grew up,” says Jessica. “There were kids from all over the world and it wasn’t like we were just going to an extension of high school. It was a much better experience than either of us could have anticipated.”

Both parents agreed that the 1990s were an exciting time to be at UConn, with the building of Gampel Pavilion, which they watched from their dorm rooms in the Alumni Quad, although it was more a “suitcase” school, as weekend meal plans had not started yet.

“It was a competitive school to get into when we were applying, but as the years went on and my own children applied and enrolled, it has gotten more competitive and the academics more challenging,” says Jessica. “That’s one of the reasons each one of them decided to go there, such a world-class school in our backyard.”

Jon has fond memories of watching the men’s basketball team practice in the Hugh S. Greer Field House after he was done with classes and being on the early end of the women’s basketball craze.

“On my way back to the dorm, I used to sit in the bleachers and watch the men’s team practice,” says Jon. “I don’t think I was doing anything wrong and they never told me to get out. I would also go to the women’s games, and it wasn’t nearly as popular as it is today. They wouldn’t even pull out the wooden bleachers. They would just set up bleachers like you would see at a Little League game.”

He adds, “I vividly remember the building of Gampel and watching the big crane that placed the tiles on top of the dome as I was walking back from the library, straight ahead to Gampel.”

When Gampel was completed, Jessica was one of the lucky students to buy season tickets, which she still has in her possession to this day.

After Jon and Jessica got married, they decided to raise their family in Mansfield based on what they knew about the town from their time at UConn.

“We knew it was a nice town because we had been here for college and the amenities the town offered, which was nothing compared to what it is today,” says Jessica. “The public schools in Mansfield had an excellent reputation, which was really important to me as an educator.”

Jack was the first of the Neumuth children to graduate from high school and going to UConn was a relatively easy choice for him.

“My mom’s a Husky, my dad’s a Husky, some of my grandparents are Huskies, so it was a no-brainer,” says Jack. “I saw UConn students throughout my high school career at E.O. Smith, took classes for UConn credit, and went to basketball games, so I wanted to be part of what UConn is all about. It’s such a vast and giant campus, that even though I had lived my whole life in this town, there were still parts of campus I didn’t even know about when I got here.”

Jack had to deal with the realities of the pandemic as a college student, but did play in the UConn Rock Ensemble Club and met some people with whom he still plays in a cover band.

Will was the next to make a decision, and he weighed the pros and cons of going to college close to home.

“It ended up that UConn had a lot more pros for me, and I am very happy with my decision, especially seeing I got to see two national championships in basketball,” says Will. “I was surprised, like Jack, how little grasp of the campus I had when I got here. I was lost my freshman year, even though I was still in the town I grew up in. I felt very separate from my life outside of UConn.”

Will was a member of a fraternity and held a job in Facilities Operations.

The experience of her brothers and UConn’s outstanding reputation in the major she wanted to pursue, made the choice easy for Mary Kate as well.

“Seeing my brothers’ experience on campus firsthand made me realize what a great opportunity I also had in attending UConn, a Tier 1 school and a top public university in the nation,” says Mary Kate.

She has been busy on campus as an officer in the UConn chapter of the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association, part of a lab that studies speech perception and language development, an employee at the Student Union, and was named a New England Scholar for her academic achievements.

Will and Mary Kate were lab partners in the same biology class one semester, but they have all lived their independent lives from each other and their parents.

“It’s amazing, I don’t think we have ever bumped into any of them accidently, whether we have gone to campus for game and went out to Downtown Storrs,” says Jon. “It really speaks to the vastness of the campus. We are so proud our children have continued the family tradition of being Students Today, but Huskies Forever.”