Since its inception, Arcadia University has maintained a rich history of being a disruptor in higher education. Educating women was not the norm when Beaver Female Seminary was established, but our institution’s founders believed that women were capable, intelligent, and worthy of the opportunity a degree could off er. Today, we look back and know how prescient we were then and wish we had captured the stories of our earliest alumnae. So many of those early stories have been lost to the annals of time.

To avoid further loss of the Beaver College legacy, we see an opportunity to capture our institutional history through the storytelling of our alumni in three distinct chapters—before college, during college, and post college. Through a series of taped conversations, captured on video, we aim to include the stories of our eldest Beaver College alumnae (and their mothers and aunts, if they were Beaver College graduates) through the College’s transition in 1973 to a co-educational model and to the Arcadia alumni, now nearing its 20th year.

To participate, graduates will be selected/nominated for three in-take sessions to retrieve life history before Beaver, during Beaver, and post Beaver College. University Advancement, in partnership with Marketing and Communications, will identify those who will be included in “Telling Our Stories.” To start, we will aim for 20 Arcadia alumni in time to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Arcadia University, followed by 170 alumni in time for the 170th anniversary of our founding institution in 2023. (Anniversary celebration date TBD.)

Graduates will be selected/nominated for three in-take sessions to retrieve before Beaver, during Beaver, and post-Beaver College memories. If you have questions or would like to contribute, contact alumni@arcadia.edu.