CONVERGENCE:

Convergence: College of Arts and Architecture Sustainability Symposium

The Sustainability Symposium will highlight, connect, and amplify the sustainability research within the College of Arts and Architecture to foster collaboration with the Penn State Sustinailbity research community and beyond. The symposium will open with remarks from B. Stephen Carpenter II, dean of the College of Arts and Architecture, and Paul Shrivastava, Penn State’s chief sustainability officer and director of the Sustainability Institute. Following the keynote address by Chambliss, the symposium will feature presentations by College of Arts and Architecture faculty representing the Center for Pedagogy in Arts and Design, Hamer Center for Community Design, Stuckeman Center for Design Computing, School of Visual Arts Studio for Sustainability and Social Action, Arts and Design Research Incubator,  and Ecology+Design. The symposium will also feature presentations on sustainability initiatives in the College of Engineering and Smeal College of Business.

Please view the Symposium’s schedule here >>

Art and Belonging Short Films

How do people feel like they belong in place and time? Or don’t belong? What role can the arts play in helping build that sense of connection or highlighting the intentional alienation of certain people from places, times, and societies? This moving and thought-provoking evening of short films will explore the convergence of art and sustainability. Our sense of (dis)connection may range from scales as small as your cubicle to as large as the planet itself but, however, we try to connect, the arts are a vital response to the need for community and belonging as we respond to a host of sustainability challenges. Scheduled shorts to play can be found here.

A sustainable world is one of intersections–between sustainable development goals like gender equity and climate change and between fields of study that approach these issues from different directions, from engineering to sociology to visual arts. In 2020–2021, Penn State’s Sustainability Institute is offering series of films, Intersections that invite us to engage at these intersections in sustainability.

Sustaining the Self while Teaching, Learning, and Living

Susan Russell
Associate Professor of Theater

Life, like teaching and learning, is a philosophy, a method, and a practice. So…what’s your philosophy of life? What is your method of living? What is your daily “doing” that shows everyone your philosophy? And, after you answer all those questions, how do you circle back and invite someone else inside that conversation?

The Sustainability Showcases make connections between faculty research, personal and professional interest, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals while broadening the discourse surrounding sustainability. Speakers are invited to give a thirty-minute talk, answer questions, and hang around to mingle with attendees. Other speakers can be found here.

Sustainability Teaching
Roundtable Series