Alvernia University

Alvernia University is a private Franciscan Roman Catholic university in Reading, Pennsylvania. Once known as Alvernia College, the school gained university status in 2008.

Alvernia University was founded in 1958 by the Bernardine Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis first as college for the sisters and then as a four-year liberal arts college. Many of the college's renovated classrooms and offices had been used for elementary and secondary education before 1958. The college's first building, Francis Hall, was built in 1926 and originally housed an orphanage. Alvernia received its charter from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1960 and was first accredited in 1967 by the Commission of Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. In 1961, the college accepted its first lay females students. In 1971, it admitted its first male commuting students, and in 1973, the first male resident students were admitted.

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