State College is a home rule municipality in Centre County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is a college town, dominated economically, culturally, and demographically by the presence of the University Park campus of The Pennsylvania State University.
Joseph Vincent Paterno, sometimes referred to as JoePa, was an American college football player, athletic director, and coach. He was the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions from 1966 to 2011. With 409 victories, Paterno is the most victorious coach in NCAA FBS history. He recorded his 409th victory on October 29, 2011; his career ended with his dismissal from the team on November 9, 2011, as a result of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal. He died 74 days later, of complications from lung cancer.
Milton Stover Eisenhower was an American academic administrator. He served as president of three major American universities: Kansas State University, Pennsylvania State University, and Johns Hopkins University. He was the youngest brother of, and advisor to, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Graham Basil Spanier is a South African-born American sociologist and university administrator who became the 16th president of Pennsylvania State University on September 1, 1995. On November 9, 2011, in the wake of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal, Spanier and longtime football coach Joe Paterno were “removed from their positions” by the Penn State board of trustees.
The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State and sometimes by the acronym PSU, is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State was named the state's first land-grant university eight years later, in 1863. Its primary campus, known as Penn State University Park, is located in State College and College Township.
University Park, also referred to as Penn State University Park, is the name given to the Pennsylvania State University's main campus located in both State College and College Township, Pennsylvania. The campus post office was designated "University Park, Pennsylvania" in 1953 by Penn State president Milton Eisenhower, after what was then Pennsylvania State College was upgraded to university status.
George Washington Atherton, soldier and educator. He was president of the Pennsylvania State University from 1882 until his death in 1906.
The Pennsylvania State University was founded on February 22, 1855 by act P.L.46, No.50 of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania. Centre County became the home of the new school when James Irvin of Bellefonte donated 200 acres (809,000 m2) of land and sold the trustees 200 acres more. In 1861, Penn State graduated its first class, marking the first graduates of a baccalaureate program at an American agricultural college. On May 1, 1862, the school's name was changed to the Agricultural College of Pennsylvania, and with the passage of the Morrill Land-Grant Act, Pennsylvania selected the school in 1863 to be the state's sole land grant college. In the following years, enrollment fell as the school tried to balance purely agricultural studies with a more classic education, falling to 64 undergraduates in 1875, a year after the school's name changed once again to the Pennsylvania State College.
Joab Langston Thomas was an American university administrator and scientist, who served as president of Pennsylvania State University, North Carolina State University and The University of Alabama.
New Beaver Field was a stadium in University Park, Pennsylvania. It served as the third home of the Penn State University Nittany Lions football team, hosting the team until they moved in 1960 to Beaver Stadium. It was built to replace the original Beaver Field (1892–1908), retroactively called Old Beaver Field, which had a capacity of 500 and stood between present-day Osmond and Frear Laboratories. Prior to this, the team played on Old Main Lawn, a grassy area outside the main classroom building of the time.
Evan Pugh was the first president of the Pennsylvania State University, serving from 1859 until his death in 1864.
Ralph Dorn Hetzel was the tenth President of the Pennsylvania State University, serving from 1927 until 1947. Prior to that he served as the President of the New Hampshire College, which became the University of New Hampshire in 1923, under Hetzel's tenure.
James Milholland was acting President of the Pennsylvania State University, serving from the death of Ralph Dorn Hetzel in 1947 until 1950. He later worked as a judge. He died after multiple heart attacks in 1956.
Onward State is a student-run news website geared toward members of the Penn State community in Pennsylvania. The website provides news, features, and commentary on issues impacting Penn State and State College. Onward State has published more than 34,000 stories since its founding in November 2008. It was voted the "Best Alternative Media Outlet" in a February 2009 online contest by U.S. News & World Report. Onward State has been cited in the New York Times, USA TODAY, ESPN, The Washington Post, and many other national news outlets. The Associated Press has described Onward State as "one of Penn State's smarter, if sometimes-snarky blogs."
Eric James Barron is an American academic administrator who was the 18th president of Pennsylvania State University from 2014 until 2022. He previously was the 14th president of Florida State University and director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.
The Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences offers 17 undergraduate majors, 23 minors, and graduate programs in 18 major areas. The college awarded the nation's first baccalaureate degrees in agriculture in 1861.
The Penn State College of Engineering is the engineering school of the Pennsylvania State University, headquartered at the University Park campus in University Park, Pennsylvania. It was established in 1896, under the leadership of George W. Atherton. Today, with 13 academic departments and degree programs, over 11,000 enrolled undergraduate and graduate students, and research expenditures of $124 million for the 2016-2017 academic year, the Penn State College of Engineering is in the top 20 of engineering schools in the United States. It is estimated that at least one out of every fifty engineers in the United States got their bachelor's degree from Penn State. Dr. Justin Schwartz currently holds the position of Harold and Inge Marcus Dean of Engineering.
The Penn State child sex abuse scandal concerned allegations and subsequent convictions of child sexual abuse committed by Jerry Sandusky, an assistant coach for the Penn State Nittany Lions football team, over a period of at least fifteen years. The scandal began to emerge publicly in March 2011 and broke in early November 2011 when Sandusky was indicted on 52 counts of child molestation, stemming from incidents that occurred between 1994 and 2009. Sandusky was ultimately convicted on 45 counts of child sexual abuse on June 22, 2012, and was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years and a maximum of 60 years in prison.
Fred Lewis Pattee was an American author and scholar of American literature. As a professor of American literature at the Pennsylvania State University, Pattee wrote the lyrics of the Penn State Alma Mater. Pattee is sometimes labeled the "first Professor of American Literature", a position he held at Penn State from 1895 until 1928.
Neeli Bendapudi is an Indian-American academic administrator who is the 19th president of Pennsylvania State University. From 2018 until 2021, she served as the 18th president of the University of Louisville. In December 2021, Penn State announced Bendapudi as the university's president; she succeeded Eric J. Barron following his retirement. She assumed office in May 2022 and is the first woman and the first non-white person to serve as Penn State's president.
