Our History

The Alumni Association was founded on February 3, 1873, at a meeting held in President Benjamin Lee Arnold's office in the old Corvallis College building located downtown. Official approval for the group and the election of officers took place on June 18 of that year. The Association has been in continuous service since that time and is today the oldest organization on campus not directly related to academics. 

In 1947, Robert M. Kerr, Edwin B. Aldrich and E. C. Sammons established the Oregon State College Foundation with the aid of OSC President A. L. Strand. They saw the Foundation as a means of creating opportunities that the college could not fulfill with state funds alone. That year they collected the first donation to the Foundation. That first gift was five dollars. 

In 1961, the Foundation began managing an endowment on behalf of the university. The initial gift to the endowment was $20,000. Today, the OSU Foundation endowment is valued at more than $800 million, with earnings distributed annually to support OSU students, faculty and programs.  

In 2017, the OSU Foundation and OSU Alumni Association were integrated, a strategic alignment designed to increase efficiencies and support coordinated activities in service to the university.