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From the Editor's Desk...
 As editor-in-chief of the Ivy Leaf, I have to admit that I got quite excited when I received our first letter-to-the-editor
- and then the second - printed below. Our University Relations staff works very hard to produce this magazine and receiving feedback from our readership
- good or bad - is greatly
appreciated. It truly is your magazine; learning that we helped to bring back positive
memories of your days at AUC, “Bathhouse U,” and Penn State Altoona makes our
work rewarding.
We also received an E-mail from an alumnus who wondered how he could make a
contribution toward the cost of the magazine. As you know, the Ivy Leaf is distributed
to more than 26,000 alumni and friends of Penn State Altoona free-of-charge - and
we have no plans to change this practice in the future. In the spirit of being
responsive to our readership, we are initiating a voluntary subscription drive for the Ivy Leaf. Information
can be obtained by contacting the office of university relations at 814-
949-5105 or via E-mail at srr5@psu.edu. We certainly would appreciate your support of the magazine in this way. But rest assured, you
will continue to receive the Ivy Leaf in your mail twice per year regardless.
Enjoy the Spring 2005 issue and feel free to E-mail your comments to
srr5@psu.edu, or mail to: Ivy Leaf Editor,
Office of University Relations, Penn State Altoona, 3000 Ivyside Park, Altoona, PA 16601. Good or bad
- I’ll be
excited to read them.
Shari R. Routch, J.D.
Director of University Relations
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 Congratulations for the fine work on the Ivy
Leaf. I particularly enjoyed the articles about
the history of the campus and about student
life. The campus has changed quite a bit since
I was there from 1981-1983. Next time I am in
the area, I must take time to visit. Please offer
my thanks to all of the authors and
photographers. Excellent job in the Penn
State tradition.
Best regards,
Kevin J. Farrell, Ph.D., P.E.
Penn State Altoona, 1981-83
Many thanks for recounting the
relatively recent (at least to my
frame of reference) background of
Penn State Altoona in the current Ivy Leaf. It
brought to mind many memories of my
freshman year at “Bathhouse U” in 1949, the
year after it opened. At that time, the only new
building was the “armory,” a 10’ by 10’
cinderblock structure where our ROTC
weapons were kept under lock and key. In the
wake of the WWII veterans returning to
school on the GI Bill, the Altoona Center and
others around the state provided a much
needed safety valve to relieve the main campus
of overpopulation. As a native of Altoona, it
was, for me, a most convenient and economical
arrangement for easing into college life. I
moved to the main campus for my sophomore
and following years, graduating in 1953.
However, I believe there is more to tell of the
history of higher education in Altoona. Early
in the twentieth century, the Pennsylvania
Railroad Apprentice School was established to
provide technical classroom work to
supplement on-the-job training for young men
learning their trades to enter the railroad’s
shop forces as machinists, boilermakers,
blacksmiths, car repairmen, and other skilled
craftsmen. That school met in a building on
17th Street near the Test Department Office
building (razed in 1968). The school was run
by one Jacob Yoder, a Penn State graduate
(probably about 1918) in Railway Mechanical
Engineering, who developed the curriculum,
wrote the texts, and was the defacto “Dean.”
By all accounts he was a brilliant engineer,
having written and published a landmark
treatise on “Locomotive Valves and Valve Gears”
(steam locomotives) in 1921.
At some point in the 1920s, a Penn State
Engineering Extension School was opened
in Altoona at the Webster School. I believe
that this was an indirect outgrowth of the
Apprentice School as Mr. Yoder was one
of its promoters and an early instructor. It was
this Extension School that evolved to the
Altoona Undergraduate Center where your
account begins with the work of the local
Advisory Board.
Through those early years, the Pennsylvania
Railroad encouraged and promoted local
educational programs, as evidenced by the
railroad employment of many of the board
members which at one time included my uncle.
And there were other organizations that
played into the ultimate establishment of
AUC, the Altoona Engineering Society being
one of the foremost.
I don’t have all of the dates and details at
hand, but I’m sure that there are resources in
the area that could be used to validate my
recollections if you should choose to look
further into the roots of Penn State Altoona.
Robert B. Watson
Penn State Altoona, 1949
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