From now on, there will be no confusing Penn’s alumni association with any other. On January 1, the General Alumni Society officially became the University of Pennsylvania Alumni Society, or UPAS.
The executive board approved the change on November 7, 1997. Elsie Sterling Howard, CW’68, president of UPAS, says, “As we get ready for the next century, we wanted to be clear about who we are-and we are really the University of Pennsylvania Alumni Society. Originally, when the Society was founded, it was the General Alumni Society of the University of Pennsylvania, but over the years, the ‘of the’ was lost. What we did was go back to our origins and reformulate [the name]. I think this is much easier for people to understand.”
Martha Z. Stachitas, CW’75, director of alumni relations, adds, “We move into the Alumni Society’s second 100 years with a clearer identity and purpose-and our new name reinforces this.”