The Association of Former Students
organization
The Association of Former Students is the official alumni association of Texas A&M University and operates as a 501 (c)(3) organization. The association recognizes over 640,000 people as part of the Aggie Network and oversees 251 clubs worldwide. Known to Aggies as simply The Association, the group is dedicated to promoting the interests and welfare of Texas A&M University, perpetuating ties of affection and esteem that students formed during their college days, and serving the current student body.
The Association facilitates numerous programs aimed at connecting the worldwide Texas A&M community, such as class reunions, A&M Clubs, the Aggie Ring program, the publication of the Texas Aggie magazine, and 'Find an Aggie' database that is housed on the Association's website, AggieNetwork.com.
History
The Association's roots go back to June 26, 1879, when former cadets hosted a reception in Houston initiating the first formal organization of A&M former students. In 1888, the Ex-Cadets Association was reorganized to form the Alumni Association. In the mid-1890s, E.P. Cushing founded Alpha Phi to "work for the upbuilding of the college." Cushing chose to contact all 3,000 former students of the college, rather than just the 300 students who had received degrees. As a result, the term "former student" is used in lieu of "ex-Aggie" (keeping with tradition that "once an Aggie, always an Aggie").
A coalition was formed between the A&M Alumni Association and Alpha Phi Fraternity in 1919 to form “The Association of Former Students.”
Lacking a permanent location on the A&M campus, the Association created a fundraising campaign to erect a YMCA-Alumni Memorial Building in 1910. Although this building was dedicated on February 15, 1915, the Y never was home to the Association.
“The Association of Former Students” enters the record as organization. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Association, Former and Students can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16162006. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1879, 1888, 1919 and 1910.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Association of Former Students” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.