Alliance College

Polish National Alliance College was an independent, liberal arts college located in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania, offering a special program in Polish and Slavic studies. From 1948 until its closing in 1987, the college was an accredited four-year co-educational liberal arts institution. Student matriculation peaked at 629 in 1968 [Bohdan Pawlowicz in column "Droga zycia," Ameryka-Echo, March 24, 1963, cited in Smietana, op. cit.: 1.] .

Founded by the Polish National Alliance in 1912 "to provide opportunities for Americans of Polish descent to learn about the mother country, its culture, history, and language," it did not just provide its students a college education and book learning about their heritage. Through such extracurricular activities as the Kujawiaki folk dance ensemble and various exchange programs with Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland, students and faculty were able to participate in the culture of their heritage first-hand.

Following the college's closure, the campus was sold to the State of Pennsylvania, which in 1992 opened SCI Cambridge Springs, a minimum-security women's prison, at the site. [" [http://www.cor.state.pa.us/cambridge/site/default.asp SCI Cambridge Springs] ." "Pennsylvania Department of Corrections". Accessed September 14, 2008.]

Polish Collection

Alliance College's library housed the largest Polish collection (35,000 cataloged and 15,000 uncataloged volumes) in North America. [ [http://www.library.pitt.edu/libraries/ac/ac.html Alliance College Polish Collection ] ] The collection was donated by the PNA to the University of Pittsburgh in 1991.

Transcripts

The office of the registrar at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pennsylvania, is the designated agent for storing and retrieving Alliance College transcripts.

References

External links

* [http://www.alliancecollege.com/ Alliance College Alumni Association]
* [http://www.library.pitt.edu/libraries/ac/ac.html Alliance College Polish Collection]