Nestled in the Nittany Valley, the Penn State campus has a charm that easily is identified. The CBS Television show “60 Minutes” once described Penn State as the ideal setting for any Hollywood director doing a film on college life. Old Main sits in the middle of 15,984 acres that make up the University Park campus. Five-hundred-and-forty acres, which includes more than 12,000 trees, are devoted to classrooms and office buildings, residence halls and laboratories, with more than 750 buildings comprising the main campus.
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In a book titled “Ivy League Programs at State School Prices,” Penn State is described as one of six public institutions that offers superior educational opportunities comparable to their Ivy League counterparts, but at a lower cost.
Penn State was chartered in 1855 when a faculty of four taught its first students, 11 of whom graduated on 1861. Classes were held in Old Main, which also served as the dormitory. A rebuilt Old Main now is the site of the offices of the University administration, including Dr. Graham Spanier, Penn State’s 16th president.
Spanier has overseen a spectacular campus expansion and modernization since becoming president in 1995. Among numerous state-of-the art and environmentally certified new constructions on campus are the East View Terrace student dormitories, Hetzel Union, Hintz Family Alumni Center, Smeal Business building, Forest Resources building, SALA landscape architecture building, Chemistry and Life Sciences buildings and many more.
From Old Main to Mount Nittany…from Pattee Library to the Creamery…from the new Business and Information Sciences and Technology building, the Palmer Museum of Art or the Arboretum, Penn State’s campus has a picture postcard look.