Dixon University Center

Dixon University Center was once the home of the Harrisburg Academy, whose leaders built the five historic structures on the grounds today. The Academy maintained the location until 1941, when the War Department took over the facility. Since 1956, the Center has functioned in various configurations as an educational consortium. In 1987, the Center's Board of Directors - a community corporation - invited the Pennsylvania System of Higher Education (the 14 publicly owned universities) to lead the University Center at Harrisburg consortium and ensure continuation of its higher education mission.

PASSHE began operating the six-and-one-half-acre site under a lease/purchase agreement in 1988, and purchased the site in 1991. In 1993, the PASSHE Board of Governors acknowledged the leadership and generosity of its founding chairman, F. Eugene Dixon, Jr., by renaming the Center in his honor.