Student Christian Association (Princeton University)

The Student Christian Association and its predecessors were the dominant religious organizations at Princeton University for almost a hundred and fifty years. The Philadelphian Society, founded by a small group of students in 1825, was the quasi-official campus religious agency by the beginning of the twentieth century. The Society ran a campus-wide campaign to raise funds for its work and for other charities. In 1905, at the request of the International YMCA, the Society founded a settlement house in China, called Princeton-in-Peking; this mission became Princeton-in-Asia. In 1906 the Society founded the Princeton Summer Camp for inner-city boys.

In 1919 followers of Frank Buchman, an itinerant evangelist, joined the Society's staff and used Buchman's often-controversial evangelical methods on campus. In 1926 the resulting conflict led President Hibben to appoint a special committee to investigate the Society's work, and in 1930 the Student-Faculty Association (SFA), organized by the Dean of the Chapel, took over the Society's programs, focusing on community service. In 1946 the Student Christian Association (SCA) replaced both the Society and the SFA, coordinating both religious and community service activities on campus.

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