Programs and speakers came to Penn State campus yesterday to celebrate TRIO programs, which are designed to help students of different ages meet their educational goals.

The TRIO Day activities included an awards ceremony that recognized the work of different individuals and offices. Victor Lee Lewis, known for his role in the film The Color of Fear, conducted workshops for the Penn State TRIO staff on diversity.

Also, at the conclusion of the day, Peggy McIntosh gave a free lecture at the HUB-Robeson Center providing a discussion of gender, race and sexuality.

The TRIO programs have a particular significance at Penn State. While there are about 1,200 colleges and universities that offer various TRIO programs, Penn State is one of only two of the schools to implement all of them. These programs combine to form a system that aids more than 4,500 people each year, ranging from middle school students just beginning to think about college to adults hoping to return to school and achieve a college degree.

Geri Weilacher, assistant to the associate vice provost and director of the Penn State TRIO Training Institute, said there are two criteria students must meet before they can be admitted to the program.

In addition to coming from low-income families, potential TRIO students must be the first generation in their families to attend college.

The five main TRIO programs are Talent Search, Upward Bound, Student Support Services, Educational Opportunity Centers and Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement, Weilacher said.

While these programs do not provide financial aid for higher education, they help the students and their families with the necessary paperwork, provide financial aid workshops for both parents and students, and support students throughout the entire process.

Shane Policastro (freshman-accounting), a participant in TRIO's Talent Search program, explained that Talent Search gave him scholarship information, facilitated his visits to different colleges and helped him to keep track of the deadlines for different applications.

"It helped with study skills and keeping focused in school," he said.

The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Postbaccalaureate Achievement, named after the physicist and astronaut who died in the 1986 explosion of the Challenger space shuttle, is designed to help college students prepare to continue their education in graduate school. Jennifer Geacone (senior-foreign language and linguistics) is one of the Penn State students participating in this program.

"The goal of the program is to give undergraduates the experience of what it's like to be a graduate student." Geacone said.

"I think my Penn State experience would have been totally different without the information this program gave me."

Geacone said she had the opportunity to study with professors over the summer, and she still stays in contact with her counselors in the program.

Both Policastro and Geacone said the individualized help from the TRIO staff has helped them to attain their goals.

"It's a lot of resources and a lot of opportunities. The people that work in the office are amazing," Geacone said.