Swarthmore College Penguin Club records

The Faculty Men’s Club was established before 1915 as a social organization for members of the faculty. A similar Faculty Women’s Club, composed primarily for the wives of the faculty, was established around the same time. The Faculty Women’s Club changed its name to Women’s Campus Club in 1929, later known simply as the Campus Club and then as the Penguin Club. Among other social activities, in the 1940s the club began putting on a series of faculty and staff theatrical productions, which continued annually and then biennially through the 1980s.

The Penguin Club, previously known as the Campus Club and before that the Faculty Club, served as the primary social organization for Swarthmore faculty and their spouses from around 1920 until 1989. They regularly organized teas, dinners, dances, and other events for the faculty community. The club was also responsible for putting on the annual faculty play. One of the most extravagant events hosted by the club was the Kovalenko dinner dance, an annual event sponsored by a fund established by a Swarthmore professor. Michael Stephanovitch Kovalenko (1888-1954) was a professor of Astronomy at Swarthmore, and he set up a fund to support the annual event in honor of his wife. The Penguin Club regularly organized and hosted this event, naming a Kovalenko planning committee each year.