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Private liberal arts college in Meadville, Pennsylvania, U. S.

Allegheny College is a private liberal arts college in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1815, Allegheny is the oldest college in continuous existence under the same name west of the Allegheny Mountains. It is a member of the Great Lakes Colleges Association and the Presidents' Athletic Conference, and it is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

The area where Allegheny College stands was the ancestral land of the Eriechronon people until the Iroquois Confederacy forced them out. Having been displaced from their ancestral lands in what is now Eastern Pennsylvania, the Lenape or Delaware Tribe moved into the now unoccupied region. They formed an alliance with the neighboring Seneca, one of the five tribes that made up the Iroquois Confederacy, and other displaced Lenape. Under the leadership of Chief Custalog, they founded the settlement of Cussewago. This settlement would later be abandoned and claimed by David Mead to become Meadville, Pennsylvania, on May 12, 1788.

Allegheny College was founded in April 1815 Alden served as president of the college until 1831 when financial and enrollment difficulties forced his resignation. Ruter Hall was built in 1853. Allegheny began admitting women in 1870, By the time Ida Tarbell, future journalist, arrived in 1876, nineteen women had attended Allegheny and only two had graduated. Tarbell described Ruter Hall in her writing, " looking out on the town in the valley, its roofs and towers half hidden by a wealth of trees, and beyond it to a circle of round breasted hills. Before I left Allegheny I had found a very precious thing in that severe room the companionship there is in the silent presence of books." In 1905, Allegheny built Alden Hall as a new and improved preparatory school. While the word "Allegheny" is a brand for the college, it is also the name of a county, a river, and a mountain range, and the school has tried to prevent other entities from using this word. For example, Allegheny objected in 2006 when Penn State tried to rename one of its campuses "Allegheny". Allegheny president Richard Cook said 'Allegheny' was "our brand." Under president Richard J. Cook, Allegheny was reported to have had a "stronger endowment, optimal enrollment, record retention rates, innovative new programs and many physical campus improvements." These years were marked by significant growth in the endowment, marked by a $115 million fund raising drive, bringing the endowment to $150 million. In February 2008, James H. Mullen Jr. was named the 21st president of Allegheny. He took office on August 1, 2008. The college and the town cooperate in many ways. One study suggested the Allegheny College generates approximately $93 million annually into Meadville and the local economy. Since 2002, Allegheny hosts classical music festivals during the summer. In October 2006, the college attracted negative publicity after local enforcement cited over 100 people for underage drinking at a college party. In July 2007, a 1,500 pound wrecking ball demolishing part of Allegheny's Pelletier Library broke its chain, rumbled down the hill, careened "back and forth across the street," hit nine parked cars, wrecked curbs, and crashed into the trunk of an Allegheny student's car, pushing his car into two cars in front of him. Eight soccer balls in his car "likely lessened the impact of the wrecking ball," and possibly spared his life, according to a police officer on the scene. The student body voted to name the library's coffee shop "The Wrecking Ball" after the event. The college has sponsored panels on unusual topics such as face transplants (2009). Allegheny professors have joined highly visible initiatives; for example, Allegheny professor Michael Maniates, described as the "nation's leading authority on the politics of consumption," joined the board of a project about the twenty minute film The Story of Stuff by filmmaker Annie Leonard, and generated headlines. Dr. Maniates said, "We really need to think of ways of making it possible for people to think about working less and getting by on less." At present, environmental concerns are important at Allegheny, which in 2008 worked with Siemens to devise a "total energy use reduction plan" for the college.

The campus has 40 principal buildings on a central campus located just north of downtown Meadville, a outdoor recreational complex north of campus, called the Robertson Athletic Complex, and the Bousson nature reserve, protected forest, and experimental forest.

Allegheny offers direct enrollment programs at Lancaster University, England; James Cook University, Australia; University of Natal, South Africa; Capital Normal University, China; and Karl Eberhard University, Germany. and Jefferson Medical College. Allegheny offers pre professional programs in law and health. Faculty sometimes focus on the local area; for example, economics professor Stephen Onyeiwu conducted a study of manufacturing in the northwestern Pennsylvania region. Ninety percent of faculty have terminal degrees in their respective fields. to structural features of ribosomal RNA, to freshwater invertebrates. In 2018, Professor Shannan Mattiace won a Fulbright Award to teach and conduct research in Chile.

There were 5,479 applications for admission to the class of 2022 (enrolling fall 2018): 3,485 were admitted (63.6%) and 474 enrolled (an admissions yield of 13.6%). The average high school GPA of enrolled freshmen was 3.51, and 35% had a high school GPA of 3.75 or higher. U. S. News & World Report ranked Allegheny as tied for 76th among liberal arts colleges, 25th for "Best Undergraduate Teaching," tied for 38th in "Top Performers for Social Mobility", and 42nd in "Best Value Schools" in the United States for 2022. Washington Monthly, which rates schools based on the degree to which they "contribute to the public good" by improving social mobility, producing research, and promoting service, ranked Allegheny 42nd among 203 liberal arts colleges in 2022.

Students generally are required to live on campus for all four years, and may reside in traditional dormitories, apartment style housing, or college owned houses. Students participate in volunteer activities: in the fall semester of 2011, the student body contributed 25,000 hours of volunteer service to the community. Some Allegheny students volunteered to help restore businesses in hurricane ravished New Orleans. Residence halls and classrooms are closed during summers. Accordingly, parents can not learn about their son's or daughter's grades unless a waiver is signed permitting release of such information. The privacy policy can sometimes lead to problems, particularly when students have mental health problems but the school is prevented legally from contacting parents. In 2002, one Allegheny student committed suicide, and his parents sued the school; a jury in 2006 found that the school was not liable or negligent. Campus security includes 24 hour foot and vehicle patrols, late night escort service, lighted pathways and sidewalks, controlled residence hall access, and 24 hour emergency telephones. Health service is offered. Official college policy is to discourage underage (less than 21 years) drinking, although there have been incidents of violations at off campus parties.

Students run a campus radio station WARC 90.3 FM and a publication called "The Allegheny Review" of undergraduate literature. The college hosts outside speakers. Allegheny has numerous student groups and organizations such as an astronomy club, a College Choir, an Outing Club, and a Peace Coalition. There are over 100 clubs and organizations offered at Allegheny. Bill Clinton, W. D. Snodgrass, Adam Sandler, George Carlin, The Vienna Choir Boys, Rusted Root, Ben Folds, The Roots, Stephen Lynch, The Fray, Jimmy Fallon, and comedian Wayne Brady. There have been "live" art shows in which invited artists, over an eight hour period, created 10 by 10 foot "drawings" on gallery walls while spectators watched.

Allegheny, known athletically as the Gators, belongs to the Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) and has NCAA Division III teams. The Gators returned to the PAC in 2022 after a 38 year absence spent in the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC); the field hockey team remains in the NCAC because the PAC does not sponsor that sport. Men's sports are baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, soccer, swimming and diving, tennis, Women's sports are basketball, track & field, 75 percent of students play intramural sports.

One tradition is that a female student is not a "real co ed" until she's been kissed on the thirteenth plank of the Rustic bridge over the stream. Legend states that there is a competition among residence halls during Orientation Week to steal the thirteenth plank and display it, though this rarely happens today; random students take the plank instead, with maintenance keeping a supply of replacement planks on hand. The fraternities on campus include Theta Chi, Phi Kappa Psi, Delta Tau Delta, Phi Delta Theta, Phi Gamma Delta and Phi Beta Sigma. In the Fall of 2016, the Nu Mu chapter of Phi Beta Sigma was reactivated at Allegheny College. The Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity was suspended in July 2013.

Allegheny is located in northwestern Pennsylvania 90 mile (145 km) north of Pittsburgh, 90 mile (145 km) east of Cleveland, and 35 mile (56 km) south of Erie, in the town of Meadville, Pennsylvania. In addition, part time staff included 36 instructors, 23 other professionals, 10 secretaries, and 4 service and maintenance staff.