A group of Penn State students is working behind the scenes to reshape how the arts reach campus, blending programming, outreach and professional development through the Center for the Performing Arts.
At the center of that effort are the arts engagement assistants, a student team responsible for curating an annual performance, as well as monthly cultural and educational student and community programming. This year, the team selected The Paradox, a pop-punk band set to perform on Wednesday at Eisenhower Auditorium.
The Atlanta-based group arrives at Penn State as a rising act in alternative rock. The band blends pop-punk energy with a modern take on early-2000s rock, tapping into a resurgence of nostalgic “indie sleaze” aesthetics while building a new audience among younger listeners. Before arriving in State College, the band made its Pennsylvania debut last year with a sold-out show in Philadelphia, further establishing its growing demand on the live circuit.
The booking reflects months of research, collaboration and a deliberate effort to expand representation in campus programming.
“It’s not so much looking at artists like, ‘who’s popular right now,’” Sydney Osinloye, a senior public relations and international politics major and CPA arts engagement assistant said. “It’s more so, ‘Who have we not seen? What genre haven’t we seen before?”
Osinloye said that mindset has guided recent shows, including past performances by comedian and Saturday Night Live star Marcello Hernandez and singer-songwriter Leon Thomas, each drawing new audiences into Eisenhower.
The goal, she said, is to reach students who may not traditionally attend performing arts events and give them new and more diverse programming opportunities.
“It will definitely tap into a specific student population that I feel like doesn’t really often have performers come that are a part of those interests,” she said of The Paradox.
Noa Diggs, a senior criminology major and arts engagement assistant, said representation plays a key role in artist selection. The team looks for performers who offer something different and can connect with underserved audiences.
“A big part of our decision making is asking who is doing something different and who can bring in students that haven’t felt represented before,” Diggs said. “Bringing an all-Black punk rock band is intentional. It shows that those students can come back and see something that reflects their experiences.”
The arts engagement assistant program was created to give students a direct role in programming. Assistants conduct artist and venue research, track student interests and help execute events from concept to performance.
“Being an arts engagement assistant, my day really never looks the same,” Diggs said. “We’re always looking for ways to engage the student population. That’s a big part of our job, just making sure that we have our ear to the ground and listening to who and what they want to see at Eisenhower.”
Khalil Frazier, the arts engagement coordinator and former student AEA for the Center for the Performing Arts, said the program was designed to amplify student voices and connect a wide-range of audiences to programming they can relate and connect to.
“The goal was to have students create a fully student-curated show each year, planned and presented by them,” Frazier said. “They’re involved in every step of the process and learning how to program a major event from start to finish…
“I think because our job is solely to engage with the community and students and possibly bring in more patrons and introduce them to a brand new world in here… as long as we have people come and we were able to build excitement, even if it’s only for a few hundred people, I still think that’s successful because at the end of the day, we did our job in hopefully bringing attention to Eisenhower as a whole to a brand new person.”
While the arts engagement assistants lead programming, the newly formed Spotlight Collective helps expand that mission. The student-run organization was recently registered with the university in December 2025. Diggs and Osinloye work together to serve as the organization’s external and internal presidents.
The goals of the Collective are to give a broader segment of the student body a voice in shaping future events and to connect more students with opportunities at the Center for the Performing Arts.
“The Spotlight Collective was born out of the Student Advisory Council,” Diggs said. “We turned it into a student organization so more students could have access to the CPA and the opportunities it offers including the professional and personal development opportunities it offers. What we wanted the club to embody was that we are a professional arts administration community…I think we just really wanted to hone in on that professional development aspect specifically within arts administration. We felt like that was like our little twist.”
Those opportunities include learning through and meeting industry professionals, attending conferences and learning about careers in arts administration.
Osinloye said the group also plays a role in gathering student input for future programming.
“It’s a really great way to get more student voices into the CPA,” she said. “We want to know who students actually want to see and make sure that’s reflected in what we bring.”
As the student organization begins to expand and learn through trial and error, the co-presidents hope to continue to expand that bridge between the Center and the student body.
Through both the assistant program and the student organizations, their like-minded goals go hand in hand in bringing in new ways to engage with the surrounding communities.
Affordability is another key factor in CPA’s mission to reach different student populations. Osinloye said ticket prices are intentionally kept low to ensure access for students.
“Affordability is huge, especially since I can see firsthand just how expensive tickets can be…With Leon Thomas, you will never see him for that price anywhere else; same with The Paradox, too,” Osinloye said.” I think it’s really cool to be able to give the students the experience of being able to see these people being like, ‘Hey, I saw him before he went big,’ or ‘I saw him at this price.’ It’s nice that students don’t really have to worry about price to go see these artists.”
Interest in The Paradox has already extended beyond campus, she added, signaling broader appeal while maintaining a student-centered focus.
“I think surprisingly there’s been a lot of interest from people outside of the Penn State community since working in the ticket center really gives me a good grasp over that,” she said. “As much as our focus really is on the students, it’s nice to learn that, at least on the outside, there’s mutual interest as well, not just on the student side.”
For Frazier, the significance of this year’s show goes beyond music. He said it challenges perceptions of genre and identity. Frazier emphasized the importance of this show and what it represents to the broader community.
“Sitting in the political climate we were in right now, more themes for why the concert was important kind of popped up,” Frazier said. “There’s this narrative, even within the Black community, but especially like from the outside looking in, that Black people have to do certain things in order to be deemed Black enough; that they have to wear their clothes a certain way, they have to talk a certain way; if they want to be a musician, they can only do like R&B or rap music. So the theme kind of shifted to more Black is not a monolith.”
The April 1 performance at Eisenhower Auditorium marks The Paradox’s first appearance at Penn State, bringing a genre not often featured in the venue back to campus.
The show will feature Dangerfield on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Donald Bryant on bass, Percy “PC3” Crews on drums and Christopher “Xelan” Bernard on lead guitar and background vocals.
Tickets for the show are still on sale for $29 for the general public or $14 for University Park students.
“This show is really important just to show the State College community that we are masters at all art forms,” Frazier said. “Black people aren’t just in one lane, we’re not just one dimensional.”
