The main event of CMU’s National TRIO day celebration will be the creation of an art piece.

This project will be a permanent art installment in the TRIO office in Lowell Heiny Hall. It is a dedication to TRIO students. The installation is made by Mavs, for Mavs.

Program Academic Advisor Jeffery Schuster is the primary artist along with two students, Cas Clark and Mercedes Wills, who are both artists as well as student staff in the TRIO office.

The piece is planned to follow Steampunk styles and students are asked to bring small metal items, about racquetball size or smaller, to contribute to the art piece.

“The Steampunk style is one that I love and is easy to walk students through,” Schuster said. “It blends old and new and is made from items that are often discarded. Re-using or up-cycling is my jam.”

TRIO Student Support Services is our campus’s resource for documented disability, income-eligible, and/or first generation students. The program is federally funded and application based.  A college degree is linked with increased lifelong earnings and disadvantaged students that participate in the program are more likely to complete their degree and improve.

They have access to advising, workshops, planning, coaching and more resources. There is also a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) specific side to the program.

The artists put a lot of intention behind the piece.

“We wanted to create a legacy piece for the TRIO office, a piece that captures a single point in time, and one that students and staff can come back to years from now. We also wanted a piece that new students and staff would look at and appreciate,” Schuster said.

  The celebration will take place Feb. 20 in UC 213 from 12pm-5pm.