Universities to mark MLK Day
Area universities plan to mark Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday in a variety of thought-provoking ways.
The students at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus, will have Jan. 21 off so they can take part in community service events.
Penn State Fayette students will join students from other branch campuses, including Greater Allegheny, Beaver, New Kensington and Shenango, to participate in projects at animal shelters, soup kitchens, churches and teen centers.
The Fayette Campus also will hold an open house from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Jan. 21 for prospective students. Tours of the campus will be conducted, which will include cultural displays of King’s life.
The contribution of blacks will continue to be honored at the campus on Jan. 22, when Pin Points Theatre touring company of Washington, D.C., will present “1,001 Black Inventions,” a fictional comedy about a modern-day family trying to live without the inventions of Africans and blacks. The play will be presented at noon in the Maggie Hardy Magerko Auditorium of the Community Center building. Admission will be charged for the performance.
The public and campus community are invited to attend a program at California University of Pennsylvania about the life and work of King at 11 a.m. Jan. 31 in the Vulcan Theater, inside the Natali Student Center at Cal U. The speaker will be Dr. Charles E. Thomas Jr., an adjunct professor in the Communication Department at Slippery Rock University and Duquesne University and adjunct assistant professor of homiletics at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
Cal U students will also take part in community service-related projects at the Natali Student Center. The students will be preparing and assembling care packages for organizations.
Waynesburg University’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day Convocation will take place at 11 a.m. Jan. 21 in Roberts Chapel. Superior Court Judge Cheryl Lynn Allen will present the convocation at 11 a.m. There is no admission charge and the convocation is open to the public.
Allen also will present a lecture at 7 p.m. Jan. 21 in Alumni Hall, titled “Meet the Judge,” outlining her life and career as a teacher in Pittsburgh Public Schools, to her work as an attorney and her election to the Superior Court.