Dear Alumni Volunteers:

After 149 years, it’s finally here—the University’s sesquicentennial year, which begins July 1.

And your Penn State Alumni Association is heavily involved in making sure the University’s 150th birthday is celebrated early and often over the next academic year.

In fact, we’re starting a day before the University’s official kick-off event on Thursday, July 8, in Schwab Auditorium.

On Wednesday, July 7, the Penn State Alumni Association will be hosting a family reunion luncheon for descendants of the families of George W. Atherton, the seventh president of Penn State from 1882-1906, and William A. Buckhout, a legendary professor of botany during the same era.

The stars of this gathering will be three elderly sisters—Mary McVay, Harriet Ward, and Helen Buckhout—who are the granddaughters of President Atherton. I’m looking forward to meeting the living legacy of Penn State’s “second founder” who was born in 1837. Aside from his monumental work in rehabilitating Penn State, which was on the brink of ruin when he was appointed, Atherton made significant contributions to American higher education far beyond the vale of old Mount Nittany. He played the pivotal role on the national stage in generating the federal legislation—the Hatch Act of 1887 and the Second Morrill Act of 1890—that provided the sorely needed financial support spelling the difference between life and death for all the struggling land-grant colleges of that era.

But I digress.

Students of the Central Pennsylvania Dance Workshop participate in Centre Furnace Mansion's May Day Celebration in 2002. Central Pennsylvania Dance Workshop.

The following day, July 8, the University will kick-off the Sesquicentennial with what promises to be a moving program in Schwab Auditorium. Then, that evening, the Board of Trustees and other guests will enjoy a reception on the grounds of Centre Furnace Mansion, which is just off East College Avenue, where the old Centre Furnace iron ore foundry stack is located. It was here that Ironmaster Moses Thompson—who with his partner James Irvin selected the site for The Farmers’ High School—lived for 29 years. In fact, the Centre Furnace Mansion served as the de facto headquarters for the institution in its aborning years, with Thompson—then also serving as Penn State’s treasurer—hosting many trustee meetings and college guests.

But I digress.

Moses Thompson (1810-1891)

Anyway, on that historic evening, your Penn State Alumni Association will be dedicating a historical marker—the 69th in our series of campus historical markers—commemorating Moses Thompson.

Other Sesquicentennial events will be held as the year progresses.

If you’re visiting the University Park campus this fall, you’ll want to stop at the HUB and peruse the Sesquicentennial photo exhibit on the history of student life at Penn State. This thoroughly entertaining show is being sponsored by the Alumni Association and the Division of Student Affairs.

Then, in early October, the Alumni Association’s two student groups—the Lion Ambassadors and the Blue & White Society—are sponsoring the Penn State Sesquicentennial Games. This University-wide event will bring students from every Penn State campus to University Park for three days of Olympic-style competitions, Oct. 1–3, replete with opening and closing ceremonies and a historically-themed Sesquicentennial Ball on Saturday night.

Closer to the University’s actual founding date, Feb. 22, the Penn State Alumni Association will sponsor a national academic symposium on “The Future of America’s Public Research Universities,” in conjunction with Penn State’s Center for the Study of Higher Education and the College of Education. This two-day event, Feb. 25­–26, will bring eminent scholars to Penn State to share the stage with Penn State’s own eminent higher education faculty in talking about the prospects for public research universities in the post-9/11 environment.

Oh, there’s more, lot’s more, but this will suffice to outline some of the major events in which your Alumni Association will be engaged.

There’s also a very handsome official Sesquicentennial poster being produced by the Department of University Publications. We’re purchasing a supply to distribute—in limited quantities—to our affiliate groups to do with what they will. When they’re ready to go, we’ll be in touch.

Much has happened to Penn State over the last 150 years. Foremost among them is the University’s emergence as one of the world’s most consequential research universities—a great teeming encampment of the human mind and spirit—while providing access and opportunity on an unprecedented scale. More than 440,000 living alumni can testify to that. It’s high time we celebrate!

For the future,
Roger L. Williams ’73, ’75g, ’88g