Penn Staters with a thirst for adventure—and with no apparent fear of deep holes or tight spaces—spend their weekends exploring and surveying underground worlds.

When the AIDS crisis erupted in Utah in the early 1980s, Kristen Ries was the only doctor in the state willing to care for HIV-positive patients. Four decades later, her efforts resonate in the lives she saved, and in the stories of people she cared for when no one else would.

From dorm assignments to teammates to physical and virtual classrooms, readers share the many ways their college friendships began—and how they've endured well beyond their days at Dear Old State.