I sat in this morning on Prof. Michael Milligan’s HIST 197 “History of Penn State” course. Like I did this time last year, I wanted to get a sense for the sort of Penn Staters attracted to the course. This fall the course it taking place in 225 Electrical Engineering West, which sits between Willard Building (where it was last fall) and the Hintz Family Alumni Center. It’s held Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:35-11:50am.

It was more than five years ago that I remember speaking with a number of alumni from different generations in a short space of time who all had a similar vision for a Penn State course on Penn State history. It would be a way for students of any major to learn about Penn State itself, from its earliest moments through its most difficult periods to the present. Prof. Milligan ultimately made this happen through his development of the semester-long curriculum.

Today’s lesson brought students through some of Evan Pugh’s early writings on the nascent Penn State and the vision for something more than merely another agricultural college, the generation-long struggle through much of the remainder of the 19th century as the institution was led by superintendent-style presidents, and ended just on the cusp of President Atherton’s emergence on the scene.