Speaker series connects leaders, residents in region

'The Current: A Beaver County Speaker Series' continues May 17
Robin Bower is pictured outdoors with trees in the back ground. She is wearing a black shirt, a chunky necklace and has short hair with side-swept bangs.

Robin Bower, an associate professor of Spanish in comparative literature at Penn State Beaver, will be the featured speaker in the next event for “The Current,” a speaker series hosted by Penn State Beaver and RiverWise.

Credit: Cathy Benscoter

MONACA, Pa. — Beaver County leaders and community members are invited to attend the second event for “The Current: A Beaver County Speaker Series.”
 
Penn State Beaver and RiverWise are hosting “The Current”at 6:30 p.m. May 17 in the Student Union Building Lodge at Penn State Beaver. The featured speaker will be Robin Bower, associate professor of Spanish in comparative literature at Penn State Beaver.
 
Bower will talk about the power of storytelling to connect people across divides. 
 
Following her talk there will be time for discussion and networking. Those in attendance will have an opportunity to share feedback, make suggestions, and help shape the future of this exciting new initiative. Everyone in the community is invited to participate. 
 
“The Current” is a discussion forum designed to generate intentional conversations about who Beaver County has been and what we are becoming. This series seeks to remind all of us that we — either intentionally or through inaction — create the communities in which we live. A call to more intentional and strategic leadership, “The Current” seeks to center the making of healthy culture as one of the primary functions of community life.
 
The first speaker in the series was Bill Flanagan, producer and host of “Our Region’s Business” at WPXI-TV. 
 
A full roll out of the “The Current” series is slated for fall 2023. To help better understand the desires and needs of the community, organizers have designed the initial two lectures as an interactive conversation between our speakers and the community at large.
 
Registration is encouraged; register here
 
“It's encouraging and empowering to work alongside Penn State Beaver on this exciting project,” said RiverWise Executive Director Daniel Rossi-Keen. “In thriving communities, colleges and universities have often been key drivers of culture-making and visionary leadership. Beaver County can benefit mightily from leaning into that precedent, and ‘The Current’ is but one example of the many ways that our institutions of higher learning can help lead our communities into the future.”