Two Families Help Make Alumni Center a Reality
A Home for Alumni
New Year Will See Cochran Hall Transformed into Alumni Center
Grants & Gifts
Read more about the grants Allegheny was recently awarded
Tradition & Transformation: Making a Difference
The campaign for Allegheny College
CEED
The Latest from the Center for Economic and Environmental Development
On the Hill
New Trustees; New Accelerated Master's; New Mentoring Program
Sports
New Heights for Soccer and Cross Country; All-Americans; Athletes of the Year
The Last Word
Remarkable New Alumni Center Will Reflect Our Remarkable Alumni
The tenth building constructed for a school whose enrollment numbered just 300 students, Cochran was a structure that was to serve many purposes and help propel Allegheny into the twentieth century. It was intended to be Allegheny's grandest building, an ornate men's dormitory that the local press said was perhaps the finest in the nation.
It featured lavish oak woodwork, fluted columns, a wood-paneled dining room, and dorm rooms for some thirty students. Some of those rooms sported private baths, a feature not typically found in American college dormitories of that time. Some had private study areas, and each had a closet, heat, hot and cold running water, and hookups for electric lighting. It was an extremely modern building for its day.
But the College's goals for Cochran went far beyond simple housing. It was intended in part to bring students back to campus from the wayward influences of Meadville, where many lived in rooming houses. It was also designed as a gathering place for the student body. The dining hall held fifteen tables, each seating ten students. That was enough to seat half the campus in 1908. In the basement, Cochran held a YMCA branch, two bowling lanes, and four shuffleboard courts.
In the almost one hundred years since the building opened, its uses have shifted steadily away from its original purpose, but its broader purpose—to serve as one of the centers of campus life—has survived. Recent generations of Alleghenians have hung out at the Grill, bought their texts at the bookstore, or stopped by to pick up their mail in the post office, which took over the old dining room space.
Beginning in fall 2005, returning alumni will experience the building in a way they have never experienced it before—as the restored grand dame at the center of the Allegheny campus.
For more information on the history of Cochran Hall, visit the Tippie Alumni Center Web Site, where College Historian and Professor Emeritus of History Jonathan Helmreich has a short history of the building. Archival photos can also be found at the site.
