State of State Preview

Story posted March 30, 2019 in CommRadio, News by Alexa Arcuti

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The annual State of State conference will be held this Sunday, March 31 at the State Theatre in downtown State College followed by a reception at the Hintz Family Alumni Center.

The State of State conference allows people to present and discuss various issues that exist at Penn State while also creating solutions to these problems. The theme of this year’s conference is “State of Change.” In the past, the conference had a set list of topics that people could speak about. Now speakers have more freedom to talk about a variety of topics.

“We are listening to all of the speakers at once, we would do like our sets, so we did away with all the sets because people really felt pigeon-holed,” State of State executive director Claire McHugh said.

The goal of State of State is to bring Penn State students and faculty and members of the State College Community together, McHugh said.

“Having reception at Hintz Family Alumni Center, which is awesome because it brings the alumni connection,” she said. “All of our adults speakers are actually alumni. So everyone has their own stake in State College and in the Penn State Community.”

The freedom given to the speakers to choose a topic encourages more people to speak at this event. This year there are 13 speakers – 10 students and three alumni. The speakers range from student leaders and faculty members to everyday students looking to tell their story.

“Student leaders, students from non-traditional backgrounds, we are kind of really trying to give a platform to people who aren’t normally given a platform to talk about these issues,” McHugh said of the variety of speakers.

 

 

Alexa Arcuti is a freshman majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact her email ara5506@psu.edu.