What's happening at Penn State? Here's a look at some of the cultural events — both in-person and virtual — open to the University and local community:
Performances
Bach's Lunch – 12:10-12:45 p.m., Jan. 29, Eisenhower Chapel, University Park campus. "Bach's Lunch" is a weekly concert series during the school year. These popular concerts are brief in order to make it possible for the University community to attend during the lunch hour. Free.
Jason Aldean: Full Throttle Tour 2026 – 7:30 p.m., Jan. 29, Bryce Jordan Center, University Park campus. Jason Aldean will perform at Penn State with special guests Nate Smith, Lanie Gardner and Dee Jay Silver as part of his Full Throttle Tour.
Rhapsody Series: "Three’s Company!" – 4 p.m., Feb. 1, Recital Hall, School of Music, University Park campus. Violinist Max Zorin, cellist Julian Schwarz and pianist Marika Bournaki will perform a program of beloved piano trios brimming with vitality, elegance and energy.
Dancing With The Stars Live! – 7:30 p.m., Feb. 4, Bryce Jordan Center, University Park campus. Dancing with the Stars' North American tour will visit Penn State with a live show featuring fan-favorite professional dancers and routines from the television series and fresh performances created for the stage.
Terri Lyne Carrington: “We Insist!” – 7:30 p.m., Feb. 5, Eisenhower Auditorium, University Park campus.Four-time Grammy Award-winning drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and a live band will perform songs from the “post-bop” jazz era in a bold reimagining of the seminal album “We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite.” The concert also will feature singer Christie Dashiell, reprising Oscar Brown’s powerful lyrics and vocals by Abbey Lincoln from the pioneering 1961 release.
Events
Bird Walk – 8-8:30 a.m., Jan. 29, the Arboretum, University Park campus. Drop in to the Arboretum for a guided bird-watching walk, led by avian expert Joe Gyekis. Please dress for the weather, wear shoes suitable for walking on rustic trails, and bring binoculars if you have them.
"100 Days 'Til Graduation" – 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Jan. 29, Hintz Alumni Center, University Park campus. The Penn State Alumni Association will celebrate the Class of 2026 with an afternoon of free food, photo opportunities, and giveaways. Attendees can also sign the official Class of 2026 banner and put a pin on the map to share where they’re headed after graduation.
Sustainable Mending – 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Jan. 30, Palmer Museum of Art, University Park. The Arboretum and the Palmer Museum will walk attendees through the craft of artful repair. Mending favorite holey jeans or a ripped shirt is a sustainable and beautiful alternative to throwing them away.
Ashketar Frontiers of Science Lecture: Medicine – 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Jan. 31, 001 Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Building, University Park campus. Wenrui Hao, professor of mathematics, and Santhosh Girirajan, T. Ming Chu Professor of Genomics and head of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, will deliver talks followed by a Q&A session.
Victorian Valentines – 2-3:30 p.m., Feb. 1, Palmer Museum of Art, University Park campus. Create a Victorian puzzle-purse valentine using origami folds and decoration techniques for romantic botanical parcels derived from the Victorian language of flowers. Registration is required.
Nature Sketching – 10-11:30 a.m., Feb. 3, Palmer Museum of Art, University Park campus. This drop-in class for adults explores a variety of art materials and techniques to connect art and nature. All experience levels are welcome. Free.
Yoga and Mindfulness at the Palmer – Noon, Feb. 4, Palmer Museum of Art, University Park campus. Join Sima Farage for yoga, mindful movement, and meditation at the museum. All bodies are welcome, and no experience is necessary. This program is presented through a partnership with Penn State Health Promotion & Wellness.
Lectures
"Brutal Intelligence and Vulgar Sophistication: The Smithsons’ Mies-Image" – 4-5 p.m., Jan. 28, Stuckeman Building Family Jury Space, University Park campus and via Zoom. Mark Linder, author and professor of architecture in the Syracuse University School of Architecture, will deliver a lecture titled “Brutal Intelligence and Vulgar Sophistication: The Smithsons’ Mies-Image," hosted by the Department of Architecture.
Rion Amilcar Scott – 6 p.m., Jan. 29, Foster Auditorium, Paterno Library, University Park campus. Award-winning fiction writer Rion Amilcar Scott will offer a reading as part of the 2025-26 Mary E. Rolling Reading Series. Scott’s work has appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, The Kenyon Review, Crab Orchard Review, Best Small Fictions 2020 and The Rumpus, among others. Free.
Carol Rittner – 12:15 p.m., Jan. 29, 103 Charles T. Butler Teaching and Learning Resource Center, Hazleton campus. To mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Penn State Hazleton will hold a luncheon and presentation with guest speaker Carol Rittner. Following lunch, Rittner will speak to students and guests at 1:30 p.m. in 109 Evelyn Graham Academic Building. Free.
“Designing Embodied Ecologies: Reframing Local Environmental Data through Design and Making” – 3:30 p.m., Jan. 30, 112 Walker Building, University Park campus and via Zoom. Heidi Biggs will discuss how environmental and climate change data that is often viewed as neutral and scientific can be critically reframed through design practices that bring these data into more intimate, local and embodied forms. She will highlight projects that use textile art, wearable soft technologies and sonification to build relationships with environmental data at the human scale.
Artist Talk: Dawn DeDeaux – 3 p.m., Feb. 3, 112 Kern Building, University Park campus. Dawn DeDeaux is an internationally exhibited artist born and based in New Orleans. Her work has been influenced by cataclysmic events of hurricanes, oil spills and disappearing landmass that have challenged our planetary existence.
James Waller – Noon, Feb. 4, via Zoom. Penn State Harrisburg’s Center for Holocaust and Jewish Studies will welcome James Waller, the Christopher J. Dodd Chair in Human Rights Practice at the University of Connecticut, for a discussion on his latest book, titled “Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing.” Free.
Gallery Talk + Conversation – 5:30 p.m., Feb. 5, Palmer Museum of Art, University Park campus. Enjoy an in-depth gallery conversation with Patrick McGrady, Charles V. Hallman Senior Curator, to get to know new works to the Palmer's permanent collection on view in special exhibition "Expanding the Collection: Recent Acquisitions."
In-person exhibits
"Bird Song" – Through Feb. 7, Patterson Building, University Park campus. Betsa Houshmand's "Bird Song" is inspired by memories of intricate bird motifs in the Shirki Pich Kilim from Iran. These pieces become a vessel for nostalgia, an echo of the presence, and the fragile distance between what was once observed and what is now reimagined.
“Entropy” – Through Feb. 16, Art Alley, HUB-Robeson Galleries, University Park campus. Jenee Mateer’s work explores time as a visible force – particularly as it manifests in the quiet transformation of her own garden. Drawing on the traditions of still life, especially the Renaissance-era “nature morte” (“dead nature”), Entropy reanimates the genre to investigate cycles of decay, regeneration, and meaning-making in both nature and art.
"Living Landscapes and More" – Feb. 4-27, Friedman Art Gallery, Wilkes-Barre campus. A new solo exhibition by Mountain Top artist Johar Manzar will feature a variety of artworks. Manzar is a board-certified assistant professor and physician-scientist at MD Anderson, where she works in pediatric radiation oncology. She holds a doctorate in biomedical engineering and studied medicine at the Mayo Clinic.
"My FireFlies – Creating Peacemakers in Our Region" – Through Feb. 27, Art Space, Classroom Building, Room 100, Schuylkill campus. An exhibition by Ibiyinka “Ibi” Alao, an internationally recognized artist, architect and author whose work explores themes of peace, childhood memory and renewal. He earned a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Ife in Nigeria and won first place among artists from 61 countries in the United Nations International Arts Competition. He also serves as a United Nations Arts Ambassador.
“Squeeze Me In” – Through May 2, Woksob Family Gallery, downtown State College. This exhibition features artworks created by Beatrice Opokua Atencah, John M. Anderson assistant teaching professor of art in the College of Arts and Architecture’s School of Visual Arts. The exhibition explores how identity is rediscovered and transformed through clothing by combining craft processes — dyeing, sewing and beading — with spatial considerations and the complex history of corsetry as frameworks for examining acceptance and belonging.
"Like It Is" – Through May 9, Ronald K. DeLong Gallery, Lehigh Valley campus. This exhibit features the work of abstract artist Femi J. Johnson. Johnson was born in Manhattan, New York, and raised in Easton, Pennsylvania. His early talent in graphite and charcoal led to a professional career as a master draftsman and designer for companies in Pennsylvania and New York before he returned his focus to fine art.
"Playing Favorites: Highlights from the Special Collections Library" – Through May 13, 104 Paterno Library, University Park campus. For this endeavor, those who teach, catalog, research, acquire, curate and describe rare book and archival materials were invited to choose one or two items to share with a wider audience — in hopes that visitors will be enraptured with the eclectic results.
“Through Different Eyes: Industrial Worlds by Women Artists” – Through December, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Museum & Art Gallery, University Park campus. This exhibit explores the lives of women artists in 20th-century industrial Pennsylvania through their artwork and premiers the curatorial work of undergraduate students Alexis Woodring, a public relations major, and Gabriella Heidorn, an art history major with a minor in French and Francophone studies, who both have special interests in American art.
“Hybrid Zones” – Through March 8, 2027, HUB Gallery, University Park campus. “Hybrid Zones” is an immersive exploration of the post-industrial landscape of Eastern Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal region. Through drawing, photography, and video installation, the artists trace the environmental and psychological imprint of centuries of resource extraction. In this powerful new body of work, Rachel Bacon and Meredith Davenport confront the entanglement of human and nonhuman systems, reflecting on how deeply industrial history is inscribed into the land—and into us.
"The Way I Saw It: A Photography Retrospective" – Through Aug. 1, 2027, Penn State All-Sports Museum, University Park campus. “The Way I Saw It” celebrates the work of Penn State alumnus Pat Little, who started out with the Daily Collegian and spent over three decades as a photojournalist with the Centre Daily Times, Associated Press and Reuters. Starting from a million photo negatives then narrowed down to a set of 5,000 photographs, the exhibit presents a final curated collection of 100 unique and powerful images of Penn State athletes, coaches, venues and fans, shot by Little between 1977 and 2005.
Virtual exhibits and online resources
In addition to in-person events, a number of virtual exhibits and online resources are available through University departments. The Palmer Museum of Art and Penn State University Libraries offer a rotating selection of historical and artistic collections to view via their websites, as well as other online resources.