Penn State Sustainability‘s annual Colloquium on the Environment returns to bring another renowned sustainability champion to the university for in-depth dialogues and explorations with students, faculty and staff, alumni, and the general community. Offered since 2004, the Colloquium series has been created in partnership with the Institute of Energy and the Environment (IEE).

For our spring 2025 Colloquium, Penn State is excited to welcome Eric Klinenberg, Helen Gould Shepard Professor of Social Science and Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University and author most recently of the bestselling “2020: ONE CITY, SEVEN PEOPLE, AND THE YEAR EVERYTHING CHANGED.” Klinenberg will dive into our recent history—elections, Covid, and social protest—to uncover the broader social forces and histories that are shaping our increasingly factionalized responses to key issues in public life. Using key insights from his sociological research, he will help us consider how we can move forward to find more productive and empathetic engagement as a society and he will explore the power of becoming engaged in broader social networks to improving people’s health, happiness, and sense of purpose.

The 2025 Colloquium is co-sponsored by the Penn State Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) and supported by the Student Initiated Fee at University Park.