One of Penn State's own -- who has made an impact in the lives of women through Dove and Seventeen Magazine -- is back in State College and on a mission to help young women.
Jess Weiner, Class of 1995, will host a workshop from 1 to 3 p.m. on Sunday in 119 Arts Building for participants in "Body Language," a monologue-based play which will kick off the Cultural Conversations festival, held March 24 to 29.
The workshop will prepare student and adult participants in "Body Language" at Radio Park Elementary, Park Forest Middle School, and State College Area High School, said Susan Russell, artistic director of Cultural Conversations.
Weiner will lead a group conversation about the core issues of the program, working to uncover issues young women face in a media-driven 21st century, said Russell, a professor in the School of Theatre.
"This is not only the first time Jess has done something like this at Penn State -- it's the first time something like this has
happened anywhere," Russell said.
Weiner works for the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty as the ambassador for the Dove Self-Esteem Fund, helping articulate conversations with women and girls about self-esteem worldwide, she said.
Reagan Copeland, the student artistic associate for Cultural Conversations, said Weiner also writes a monthly body image column for Seventeen Magazine and has published several books on self-image.
"She's sort of our national women's self-image cheerleader," Copeland (junior-theatre and English) said.
Weiner said she met Russell when she delivered the commencement address for Penn State's College of Arts and Architecture in May.
She was "wholly blown
away" by Cultural Conversations and the work Russell had been doing on campus and in the community.
She said she immediately offered to support and participate in a Cultural Conversations program that explores the issues of body image for women of all ages, sizes and races because that's been the focus of her career for the last 15 years.
The theme of this spring's Cultural Conversations, which was created by Russell in 2007, is "The Abled, Disabled and Disappearing Body."
Russell said "Body Language" will be a compilation of selected works from each school involved, along with adult monologues from women in State College.
It's not too late for female students to write her about what they are concerned with or how they want to be involved in with the show in March.
Weiner said she is proud of the School of Theatre, Russell and her team of people who are helping to further communication about the topical issues impacting the lives of girls and women.
And it's not just women and girls, she said -- it's men and boys, too.
"Everyone is impacted by this issue, but this Cultural Conversations is designed to build a community to do something about it," she said.
