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$1 million gift funds learning institute for adults at Penn State.   Read More >>>

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Mission

Outreach serves as a catalyst, collaborator, and connector to meet the needs of our various constituents and stakeholders, with the programs, research, and services of Penn State's colleagues and faculty.

Vision

Penn State Outreach will aggressively advance the University as the premier innovative, engaged institution of higher education in the country. We will enrich the lives of citizens and communities in the Commonwealth and beyond by mobilizing our partners and University resources and knowledge to address individual and social needs.

History

Penn State's tradition of reaching out to the community goes back to the college's earliest days. Since the University was founded as the Farmers' High School, it's no surprise that agriculture was the focus of the earliest outreach efforts. Evan Pugh, president from 1859 to 1864, conducted chemical analyses of commercial fertilizers so that farmers would know what they were really buying.

Formal outreach programs can be traced back to 1877, when farmers from around the state began attending Farmers' Institutes to learn about new practices that could help them with their crops and livestock. That was more than three decades before the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 provided funds for cooperative extension administration by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and state land-grant institutions—like Penn State. By that time Penn State already had 25 extension agents at work, delivering agricultural education throughout the Commonwealth.

The University launched distance education classes in 1892 (the forerunner of today's World Campus), and management education programs for business and industry followed in 1915. The roots of the University's youngest outreach division, Penn State Public Broadcasting, lie in a 1952 meeting at The Nittany Lion Inn, where more than 100 leaders in education, broadcasting, and government laid the foundation for a noncommercial, educational television service for the United States.

Today, Penn State's major outreach units—Continuing Education, Cooperative Extension, Economic and Workforce Development, Public Broadcasting and Online Education—are recognized leaders in delivering programs with widespread impact, offering the largest and most diversified outreach program portfolio in the country.