Old Willow

  • Penn State Celebrates Old Willow, the University’s Longest Living Tradition

    Penn State hosted a ceremony this spring for the official replanting of the fourth generation of Old Willow, Penn State’s longest living tradition dating back to the 1859 planting of the first generation of the tree. The April ceremony was streamed by the Mount Nittany Conservancy on X and speakers included Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi. Penn State News covered the event, publishing photos of the ceremony and the Old Willow sapling now taking root.

    Penn State News also reported on the crucial conservation role of Tom Flynn, Penn State Manager of Grounds Services, in carrying on the tradition with new saplings after the third generation of Old Willow succumbed to a storm in March 2021.

    “Old Willow has a lot to do with our history,” Flynn told Penn State News. “Penn State’s land-grant mission was very integral to our founding. There was obviously a great emphasis on agriculture, rural practices, and then eventually the sciences and engineering. Legend has it that Evan Pugh, Penn State’s first president, got the first Old Willow from Alexander Pope’s garden, and as it came from a poet, it gave a nod to more of the liberal arts.”

    Tom Shakely, author of Conserving Mount Nittany: A Dynamic Environmentalism and President of the Mount Nittany Conservancy, spoke to the Centre County Report in March 2021 on Old Willow as a symbol that is both legendary and true. After this spring’s planting of the fourth generation of Old Willow, Shakely offered further reflections on the tree’s role as a living symbol.

    “Our affection for Old Willow springs from the same source as our love for Mount Nittany,” said Shakely. “We are motivated by the conservation of living symbols and landscapes. We recognize that environmental conservation is impossible apart from an underlying conservation of culture, of the lifeways of a people and place. True symbols point to those realities we know through experience.”

    “When we see Mount Nittany, we know we are home. And when we visit Old Willow at the heart of Penn State’s campus, we recognize our place as receivers of a tremendous gift from generations past as well as trustees of a living symbol for generations yet to be.”

    Derek Kalp, a Mount Nittany Conservancy board member, is also playing a significant role in Old Willow’s conservation. Penn State News reported that Kalp is “working closely with our Commonwealth Campuses and other locations across the state to ensure they receive their own Old Willow. Lion Surplus has offered to assist with the transportation logistics for the trees across the state. We currently have 18 additional sites where Old Willow will be planted. We’re trying to disperse this Penn State tradition and get it to quite literally grow outside the confines of the University Park campus.”

    This will be the first time in Penn State’s history that Old Willow is not only being conserved through replanting at its original home, but also is being conserved by having new sapling descendants take root at Penn State campuses across the Commonwealth.

    The fact of Old Willow’s conservation as a living symbol is due in significant part to Dr. Ben Novak, founder of the Mount Nittany Conservancy. Over generations, Dr. Novak shared the history and tradition of Old Willow, which contributed to today’s significant awareness for the tree and Old Willow having been named one of Penn State’s Heritage Trees.

    In his book, “Is Penn State a Real University?: An Investigation of the University as a Living Ideal“, Dr. Novak writes: “In the 18th and 19th centuries many new institutions were founded. One of the ways people chose to show their faith in them was by planting a tree at the time of the founding. It was a symbol of faith that the new tree, like the new institution, would outlive its founders.”

    Spencer McCullough, a Mount Nittany Conservancy Ben Novak Fellow, created this short film in 2017 on Penn State’s Heritage Trees and Groves program, of which Old Willow is a part:

    Chris Buchignani, a Mount Nittany Conservancy board member, was invited to speak as a part of this spring’s Old Willow replanting ceremony.

    “We were honored that the event organizers invited the Mount Nittany Conservancy to be a part of this historic moment,” said Buchignani. “Since the founding of Penn State, Old Willow has only been replanted three times prior to this. It was meaningful to share the poetic words of Penn Staters from more than a century ago, providing a glimpse of the past life of Penn State and our timeless love for this Penn State tradition. Old Willow is a living connection between Penn State’s past, present, and future.”

    Chris Buchignani recited “The Willow,” a poetic tribute to the first generation of Old Willow that appears in the 1894 edition of the La Vie student yearbook:

    Sentinel thou art!
    Dear old Willow!
    ’Neath thy waving, verdant tresses,
    Ever coming, ever going,
    Pass the tides of busy students,
    Ever ebbing, ever flowing:
    Untamed Freshmen, all-wise Sophomores,
    Stately Seniors, hearty Juniors,
    In a motley, ceaseless thronging,
    ’Neath thy ever-faithful guarding,
    Chatting, laughing, thinking, studying
    As they go.

    Standing where the pathways part,
    Dear Old Willow!
    Where the maidens fair pass onward
    To the cottage, sweetly smiling,
    And the handsome youth tip lightly,
    Parting with the face beguiling.
    There the half-backs in their moleskins,
    And the runners in their medals,
    Hear the whispered benedictions,
    Get new love for Alma Mater,
    Borrow strength for greater strivings
    In the field.

  • New Life for the Old Willow

    Although it has long been commemorated with a campus historical marker, many modern Penn Staters do not know the story of Old Willow, the University’s oldest tradition. Two recent graduates, Brenden Dooley and Jordan Harris, hope that will soon change.

    By Jordan Harris

    The duty of summarizing the history of Penn State’s Old Willow was done masterfully by Ben Novak in his book “Is Penn State a Real University.” Old Willow, as recorded by Dr. Novak and on the new plaque installed last month to honor it, was brought to the Farmers High School of Pennsylvania by Evan Pugh upon his arrival as the school’s first President. As was common association, the tree symbolized a gesture of birth and hope for the newborn institution and was thus treated with necessary reverence by its students. Freshman, as the new plaque remembers, would literally bow before it signifying their appreciation for Penn State’s oldest living tradition.

    A combination of bad fortunes destroyed Evan Pugh’s Old Willow. Equally bad fortunes subsequently doomed the original willow’s off-shoot and despite yet another, a third-generation willow, being prominently planted in the shadow of Old Main, the lore and tradition of the once beloved tree faded away. Brenden Dooley and I agreed that the time to recapture the lore and tradition of Old Willow is right now. Dr. Novak’s book brilliantly reminded us of the role that Old Willow played in Penn State’s past. The willow should play an equally central role in Penn State’s future.

    Our inaugural step to recovery was to propose that Penn State’s current Old Willow be designated status as a Heritage Tree. The designation is given to individual trees holding “exceptional historical, cultural, and/or aesthetic value” to the university. Along with this status, comes an information plaque in front of the willow and a promise by the university to take all reasonable measures to forever preserve the tree. Thanks to the efforts of many, this step is now complete. The next step, cementing Old Willow’s place in Penn State’s future, is now up to all of us.

    Legend has it, that Pugh trimmed the sapping of Old Willow from the garden of English poet Alexander Pope. In Pope’s poetic interpretation of The Odyssey of Homer, what could be confused as an ode to Old Willow‘s future is included:

    Like leaves on trees the race of man is found — Now green in youth, now withering on the ground; Another race the following spring supplies: They fall successive, and successive rise. –Alexander Pope (The Iliad of Homer)

    Pope may just as well have been talking about the ever-changing nature of our university. A university exists in a constant state of evolution and rebirth. Each fall a new generation arrives at Penn State with a fresh vision of what “Penn State” is, and what it should become. This fall will be no different in this fact while holding one unique distinction. The class of 2018 will, in possession of its own fresh vision, arrive with the university’s 18th President carrying a fresh new vision of his own. What better time for Old Willow and its meaning to reclaim center stage as an important Penn State symbol? What better time for Penn State freshman to once again bow before it, perhaps literally, but at least in spirit and ask “where will we take our great university?” There will be no better time.

    The rest of us are not exempt from these questions, especially now. It is no secret that as a university community we are emerging from the most challenging time in our history, and one of the most difficult situations in the history of higher education. A referendum lies with us to be open and encouraging to new visions and new directions and to embrace a new kind of rebirth. No Penn State tradition is better able to capture that referendum and provide us with hope than Old Willow.

    Brenden and I hope, and would certainly prefer, that no one think of us when they see the Old Willow Memorial Plaque, nor suspect that they will. We hope instead that the plaque and the status as a Heritage Tree means that countless generations will be able to look at the Willow remembering what the tree has always stood for and where it can inspire us collectively to go. Old Willow can, and will, inspire us today in our most challenging times, to continue the progression of our great university. The inspiration that stems from it places the burden squarely with us.

  • Old Willow and the Heritage Tree Endowment

    Onward State broke the news that the Senior Class of 2014 Gift Committee has released its three options for seniors to choose from for their class’s permanent visible symbol on Penn State’s campus.

    Of the three options, one is called the “Heritage Tree Endowment” and relates to Old Willow, one of Penn State’s earliest symbols and something that Nittany Valley Press popularizes through its book, “Is Penn State a Real University?: An Investigation of the University as a Living Ideal.” Here’s how the Senior Class Gift Committee describes the Heritage Tree Endowment:

    This gift “will preserve the beauty and unique character of the University Park campus through the creation of an endowment to protect trees that have special historical, cultural or aesthetic value and are designated as Penn State Heritage Trees. The University would recognize the gift by transplanting on to campus a fourth-generation descendant of ‘Old Willow,’ a landmark tree planted soon after Penn State admitted its first class of students in 1859, by Professor of Horticulture William G. Waring. Members of the senior class of 2014 could enjoy watching this tree grow as they return to campus again and again throughout their lives, while the endowment provides permanent funds to protect and nurture the University’s Heritage Trees.”

    In “Is Penn State a Real University,” author Ben Novak writes about the origin of Old Willow in the chapter “Old Willow, Monarch of the Campus.” It seems only appropriate to excerpt a bit of that here, to provide even more context for why the Heritage Tree Endowment is such an innovative, sustainable, and yet culturally meaningful concept:

    In the 18th and 19th centuries many new institutions were founded. One of the ways people chose to show their faith in them was by planting a tree at the time of the founding. It was a symbol of faith that the new tree, like the new institution, would outlive its founders. At the time of the American Revolution, for example, Liberty Trees were planted in town squares up and down the land to signify faith in the vigor and permanence of the new nation.

    Penn State also had a tree that symbolized the faith of her founders. When Dr. Evan Pugh was invited to become Penn State’s first president, he was still living in England conducting research. Once on a visit to the estate of the poet Alexander Pope, Dr. Pugh took a cutting from one of the willows at Pope’s villa at Twickenham. He remembered this cutting as he was packing to leave for his new post at Penn State, and decided he would bring this scion with him as his special tree to plant on the campus of the new college. It was also said that he wished to transplant “a bit of England on our pioneer campus.”

    When he brought his tree and his idea to William G. Waring, former principal of the Bellefonte Academy and Penn State’s newly-appointed first superintendent of grounds, there was instant enthusiasm. Dr. Pugh and Dr. Waring scouted the area to pick the most suitable spot for the tree. They chose to plant it at the main entrance to the college. At that time Allen Street ran through campus, and the Mall was a fenced driveway. The entrance to the college was at a point where a path veered over to Old Main. President Pugh’s willow was planted beside the gate and stile. A sidewalk still veers off from the Mall at that point.

    The Old Willow at the gate was well deserving of the faith that had been placed in it. It grew to be a magnificent tree. Dr. Runkle, the College Librarian, wrote of it, “no one who saw it and loved it in its prime will ever forget its beauty and majesty.” It became the focal point of the campus.

    The gate where it was located was the place of many fondly remembered comings and goings, and many a campus meeting was held under its branches. As a result, it became one of the best remembered symbols of early Penn State.