Call for Proposals: PA EmpowerU Convening Break-Out Sessions – Aug 11

Posted by PA Department of Education on July 22, 2025

New name, same mission!  Essential Needs, Empowered Futures –PA EmpowerU, (formerly known as PA Maslow), will be hosting our Statewide Collegiate Basic Needs Convening, on Tuesday, October 21, 2025, at the Altoona Grand Hotel & Conference Center, 1 Sheraton Drive, Altoona, PA 16601.

All tenets of collegiate basic needs continue to be essential for students’ success, but this year’s themes focus on intersections with Mental Health, Safety and Belonging, and Financial Wellness.

Call for PA EmpowerU Convening Break-Out Session Proposals:

Please consider sharing your work and best practices for supporting PA students’ essential needs. Proposals for 50-minute sessions addressing students’ essential needs will ideally integrate belonging, financial wellness, and/or mental health.

Strong sessions are structured in a practical and engaging way for the audience to consider their own context and students. This might include an interactive presentation, demonstration, case examples, student panel discussion, or other methods that could benefit diverse stakeholders representing higher education practitioners, K-12 school counselors, and national state, and/or community-based organizations.

Examples of possible session topics include:

• Mental health support services, crisis management, intervention and postvention
• Institutional challenges and successful solutions addressing interconnected basic needs
• Student-centered approaches to campus belonging, well-being, financial wellness, and/or any tenet of collegiate basic needs
• Institutional safety, communication, and contingency planning.
• Persistence planning for affordability without basic needs insecurity, and support for students in financial distress (pre-and post-matriculation)
• Reaching diverse student types with resources and uptake across all areas of basic needs
• Alignment/partnerships with K-12 and/or Labor and Industry partners

Deadline for submissions is 9am on Monday August 11, 2025.   Please submit here. Notice of determination for proposal(s) will be sent by September 1, 2025.

For any questions, please reach out to David Stewart at dalstewar@pa.gov or Cindy Gebhard at cgebhard@pa.gov.