Myth: The word "Nittany" is derived from Princess Nita-nee, a member of the Native American tribes who once lived in central Pennsylvania.
Fact: Princess Nita-nee was "invented" by author and
publisher Henry W. Shoemaker and has no basis whatever in fact.
Shoemaker’s mention of the princess first appeared in print in 1903.
At that time he attributed the tale to "an aged Seneca Indian
named Isaac Steele." Shoemaker, a well known Pennsylvania folklorist,
later admitted that both Steele and Nita-nee were "purely fictitious."
To learn the REAL origins of "Nittany", go to "All Things Nittany"
Myth: Penn State is state-owned and operated.
Fact: Penn State is "state-related." It was incorporated in 1855
as a private entity but the Board of Trustees included representatives
of state government, including the governor. The state legislature in
1863
named Penn State the Commonwealth's sole land-grant institution, a
designation that gave the University a broad mission of teaching,
research, and public service. The legislature only occasionally granted
funds to
Penn State during the early years but since 1887 has made
appropriations on a regular basis.
Myth: Old Main burned down.
Fact: The original Old Main -- Penn State's first academic and
administrative building -- was completed in 1863. A fire partially
destroyed the roof in 1892, which resulted in remodeling the upper floor
and the bell tower.
Age and heavy use took their toll, and the building was torn down in
1929. The current Old Main was opened in 1930.
The Original Old Main
Myth: Penn State began as a high school.
Fact: Penn State was incorporated in 1855 as an agricultural college
having the power to grant baccalaureate degrees. Its aim was to
encourage the application of science to farming. But many farmers
distrusted the
traditional college curriculum that emphasized the study of
rhetoric, ancient languages, philosophy, and other "classical"
subjects. To allay these suspicions, the University’s founders named the
institution The Farmers’ High School, a designation that lasted until
1862.
Myth: Land-grant education means agricultural education.
Fact: The Land-Grant Act, passed by Congress in 1862, called for
states to select and support colleges and universities that would
include agriculture and engineering in their curricula, without
excluding science or classical studies. Their goal was "to promote
liberal and practical education..." So Penn State, as a land-grant
institution, offered a wide range of studies from its earliest years.
Only a small fraction of the student body majored in agriculture.
Myth: The sun dial on the Old Main lawn is the geographic center of Pennsylvania.
Fact: The sun dial is a gift of the senior class of 1915 and was
presented that same year. It holds no geographic significance. The
geographic center of the Commonwealth is in Centre County, but the
latest calculations by Penn State cartographers
place it near Fisherman's Paradise along Spring Creek, near
Bellefonte. For many years, based on older methods of calculation, the
center was thought to be near Aaronsburg, along Route 45, about 25 miles
east of the University Park campus.
Myth: Penn State’s University Park campus is located in Happy Valley.
Fact: That may be the popular assumption in some quarters but in
truth there is no geographic place in Centre County formally designated
"Happy Valley." Happy Valley is generally used in an informal or even a
slang context, often by journalists,
and is not part of the University's official style. The University
Park campus and the community of State College are located in the
Nittany Valley, near its confluence with Penns Valley. The origin of the
name Happy Valley as applied to this location is murky.
There seems to have been some local usage as early as the 1950s, but
the term apparently became far more widely used and recognized starting
in the late 1960s, about the time when network telecasts of Nittany
Lions football games began, and thus might
be attributed to sports writers and broadcasters.
The Nittany Valley
Myth: There are no sorority houses at Penn State because of an old Pennsylvania law that defined a dwelling that housed a certain number of unrelated women as a brothel.
Fact: Sorority houses did exist on the University Park campus, and
there is no such state law nor any University prohibition against
sorority houses per se. The first sorority house on campus was Stone House
(a former faculty residence), which in 1928 became
home to a women's social club, Nita-Nee, which became Kappa Alpha
Theta in 1930 and occupied the house until 1949. Other sororities also
had campus houses but, like KAT, moved out of these aging structures
soon after World War II and into newly available
suites in residence halls. The sororities rented the suites from the
University -- as they continue to do today. The advantages of residence
hall suites and the high cost of private housing in the post-war era
discouraged off-campus sorority houses, although the borough of State
College, in its zoning laws, makes no distinction between sorority and
fraternity houses.
For more information on Penn State Myths and Traditions go to the PSU Website.
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