Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University (commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU) is a public, state-related research university with campuses and facilities in Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855, the university has a stated threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service. Its instructional mission includes undergraduate, graduate, professional and continuing education offered through resident instruction and online delivery. Its University Park campus, the flagship campus, lies within the Borough of State College and College Township. The Penn State Dickinson School of Law has facilities located in both Carlisle and State College and the College of Medicine is located in Hershey. Penn State has another 19 commonwealth campuses and 5 special-mission campuses located across the state.
Annual enrollment at the University Park campus totals more than 44,000 graduate and undergraduate students, making it one of the largest universities in the United States. It has the world's largest dues-paying alumni association. The university's total enrollment in 2009–10 was approximately 94,300 across its 24 campuses and online through its World Campus.
The university offers more than 160 majors among all its campuses and administers $1.83 billion (as of June 30, 2011) in endowment and similar funds. The university's research expenditures exceeded $753 million for the 2009 fiscal year and was ranked 9th among U.S. universities in research income by the National Science Foundation.
Annually, the university hosts the Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon (THON), which is the world's largest student-run philanthropy. The university's athletics teams compete in Division I of the NCAA and are collectively known as the Penn State Nittany Lions. They compete in the Big Ten Conference for most sports.
Read more about Pennsylvania State University: Organization and Administration, Academics, Athletics
Famous quotes containing the words pennsylvania, state and/or university:
“The Republican Party does not perceive how many his failure will make to vote more correctly than they would have them. They have counted the votes of Pennsylvania & Co., but they have not correctly counted Captain Brown’s vote. He has taken the wind out of their sails,—the little wind they had,—and they may as well lie to and repair.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A ship is a bit of terra firma cut off from the main; it is a state in itself; and the captain is its king.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Like dreaming, reading performs the prodigious task of carrying us off to other worlds. But reading is not dreaming because books, unlike dreams, are subject to our will: they envelop us in alternative realities only because we give them explicit permission to do so. Books are the dreams we would most like to have, and, like dreams, they have the power to change consciousness, turning sadness to laughter and anxious introspection to the relaxed contemplation of some other time and place.”
—Victor Null, South African educator, psychologist. Lost in a Book: The Psychology of Reading for Pleasure, introduction, Yale University Press (1988)