Community Calendar

Spring 2025 John M. Anderson Endowed Lecture Series Visiting Artist: Mohamed Sleiman Labat

Mohamed Sleiman Labat is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and writer, born, raised, and based in the Sahrawi refugee camps in southwest Algeria. He is the founder and director of the community art space Motif Art Studio, a creative hub for art and education in Samara Camp.

Join renowned consumer advocate, nutritionist, and award-winning author Marion Nestle for a public talk on the politics of food industry marketing on April 2 from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in the HUB-Robeson Center’s Flex Theatre. Nestle, known for her critical work on food safety, nutrition, and industry influence, will explore how marketing shapes our food choices and health. A discussion and refreshments will follow the event, offering an opportunity for continued conversation. This lecture, sponsored by the Ross Student Farm’s Food Justice team, is open to all who are passionate about food, health, and equity in our food systems.

Join us for our 2025 Richard B. Lippin Lecture in Ethics!

Kate Manne, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University and author, will be presenting her talk "Ordinary Cruelty: Explaining Misogyny without Dehumanization".

Co-sponsored by the Rock Ethics Institute and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Please join us as we listen to Zhor Rehihil talk about her role as the only African and Muslim woman curator of a Jewish museum in the world and what it means to do such vital work in this difficult contemporary political climate. As a journalist, Rehihil will also talk about her popular radio program “Nass El Mellah,” on the history and culture of Moroccan Jews.
Refreshments will be provided.

A second-generation Palestinian refugee born and raised in Jordan, Dr. Abdo’s teaching, research, and scholarship focus on Arab women writers and Arab and Islamic feminisms. She has also published poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Her first book AMERICAN REFUGE: True Stories of the Refugee Experience was published by Steerforth Press in 2022. In 2015, Dr. Abdo founded Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR), which advocates for housing refugee families on college and university campus grounds and supporting them in their resettlement.

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.

“Behind and Before ’Before and After Nature’”
Lecture by David Lang
3 pm Thursday, April 10, 2025
117 Music Building I

Composer David Lang will host a discussion of the thought and research behind his new piece, before and after nature; the structure of the music; and the limitations that go along with writing music about the world around us. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

Presented by the Center for the Performing Arts, in collaboration with the Penn State School of Music.
Free but registration is required.

Register online at
https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=RY30fNs9iUOpwcEVUm61LrFwI7OzG51JvLp6-5W0w0lUQk44VFVQWFdHTFVWOUpaMTRSSUlDTzFUQSQlQCN0PWcu&route=shorturl

Enjoy an in-depth engagement on special exhibition Profiles of Vulnerability and Protection with the theme “Vulnerable Environments and Protection” with Karen Keifer-Boyd, Professor of Art Education and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

“Explorations: The Penn State Emeritus Academy Lecture Series” will showcase the work of retired, emeritus faculty members. The Penn State community and the public are invited to join these thought-provoking discussions as part of the University's ongoing commitment to academic engagement and the exchange of ideas.

From 2:30 to 4 p.m. April 15, Michael Green will describe how, after beginning studies in engineering at Berkeley, he moved into the life sciences, earning a BA in physiology and then a PhD in nutritional biochemistry – retaining a conviction that applied mathematics was an untapped resource for advancing knowledge about biological systems, including nutrient metabolism.

Events are offered in-person at the Foster Auditorium, Pattee and Paterno Library, University Park campus and virtually via Zoom.

Schlow and Penn State's Office of Government and Community Relations bring you fascinating topics!

When you want to effect positive change against structural and systemic problems, where do you begin? In this talk, Lisa Ellen Silvestri discusses findings from her recent book, Peace by Peace: Risking Public Action, Creating Social Change, focusing on how to move past debilitating cynicism to create actionable change in our communities.