UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Penn State has reached a milestone 165 years in the making, awarding its one millionth degree Saturday, August 15th, during summer commencement ceremonies at the University Park campus.<\/p>\n
The university was founded in 1855 as the Farmers\u2019 High School of Pennsylvania. Its first 11 graduates received bachelor of scientific agriculture degrees in 1861.<\/p>\n
Penn State expected to award about 2,700 diplomas during this weekend\u2019s commencement ceremonies, pushing the university past the one-million-degree mark.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an exciting time for Penn State. It\u2019s obviously a major milestone,\u201d said Joe Huxta, president of the Penn State Alumni Association\u2019s Lehigh Valley Chapter.<\/p>\n
Huxta graduated from Penn State in 1971 with a degree in accounting. He has watched the university expand significantly since his time as a student. When he recently returned to campus, he said he could not find his former dormitory.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Penn State is a Top 25 U.S. research institution, according to the university. It offers more than 275 majors and 11,000 course offerings and has more than 800,000 living alumni around the world.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro issued a statewide proclamation recognizing the university\u2019s contributions to the commonwealth. Those contributions extend beyond Penn State\u2019s campuses, with alumni involved in communities throughout the state and beyond.<\/p>\n
Huxta said the Lehigh Valley alumni chapter works with organizations including Toys for Tots and the American Cancer Society. The chapter also raises scholarship money for students, donating about $5,000 each year to students at Penn State\u2019s Lehigh Valley campus.<\/p>\n
Additional events celebrating the million-degree milestone are planned throughout the fall, including a commemorative ice cream flavor from the Berkey Creamery and a fundraising campaign to support future students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Penn State has reached a milestone 165 years in the making, awarding its one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[627,22946,112471,157,112469,3743,28,30,29,9746,112470],"class_list":["post-266600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-alumni","tag-commencement","tag-joe-huxta","tag-lehigh-valley","tag-one-million-degrees","tag-penn-state","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-scholarship","tag-university-milestone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}