Our History

The Alumni Association is the oldest autonomous organization that is formally related to the University. It was founded on July 28, 1870, nine years after the first students were graduated from “The Agricultural College of Pennsylvania,” as the institution was then known. On July 30, 1874, graduates met for the first time as alumni of The Pennsylvania State College and adopted their first constitution, giving the organization the name of “The Alumni Association of the Pennsylvania State College.”

The first members were nearly all graduates who were on the faculty, and their “statement of purpose” indicated an interest in “promoting fraternal feeling” and “continuing the association of College days.” The founders’ initial meeting was held in the Chemical Lecture Room in Old Main—the exact spot of the present Alumni Lounge, 104 Old Main.

Minutes of the group’s first meetings indicated somewhat limited objectives, but gradually the organization began to promote the interests and objectives of the institution. In July 1875, General James A. Beaver—then president of the Board of Trustees—attended a meeting and proposed that the alumni elect three members of the Board at regular intervals. Both the association and Centre County’s Court of Common Pleas agreed to such an amendment to the College charter, and alumni elected their first three representatives on the Board in 1876. In 1905 the charter was again amended to raise the number of trustees from three to nine—the number elected at the present time.

Constitutions and bylaws have been numerous during the Association’s history. In 1906 a new constitution was adopted providing for a Board of Managers; in 1910 the first salaried officer (secretary-treasurer) was employed. Complete revisions of the constitution were adopted in 1919 and 1924.

In 1924 the Penn State Alumni Association was first incorporated in the Centre County courts. In 1974 this charter was legally revised, brought up to date, and filed in Harrisburg. The bylaws, as amended from time to time, lay down the procedures for governing the association under its charter (see the current bylaws).

The first president of the Alumni Association was A. A. Breneman, class of 1866, who died in 1928.