A Place for Connection and Community
The Liberal Arts Chaiken Center for Student Success, in partnership with our college and University resources, provides undergraduate students with a supportive place to be guided as they navigate their college journey.
Through peer success coaching we empower students to utilize resources, connect with peers and campus communities, cultivate strengths and interests, and advocate for themselves, so they can achieve their individual goals for academic, personal, and professional success.
- 138 and 139 Sparks Building
- chaikencenter@psu.edu
Chaiken Scholars
First-Generation Support
Explore Resources
Peer Success Coaching
A staple of the Liberal Arts Chaiken Center since 2022, students can meet with a peer success coach to get help navigating college and University resources. Our coaches are experienced Penn State students who help current students, as well as incoming first-year, transfer, and change-of-campus students, connect with the campus community.
Reserve a Space
Looking for a group study space? Reserve 139 Sparks Building in the Chaiken Center. It is equipped with a Solstice Pod and other technology available to your group for effective and innovative studying techniques. You can also reserve the space to practice presentations with friends.
If you are a club or student organization connected to the Liberal Arts, you can reserve space for meetings. Our OWL technology allows you to host hybrid meetings so more people can attend.
Email chaikencenter@psu.edu to check availability or to make a reservation. This opportunity is open to all Liberal Arts students.
Our Services
The Chaiken Center is a welcoming and inclusive space for all Liberal Arts students to work, study, and connect with peers and support staff. Learn more about college and University resources or further your academic, personal, and professional goals. The center also serves as a one stop shop for information and questions.
- Peer success coaching drop-ins and appointments
- Drop-in and reserved study spaces
- Student success workshops and programming
- Downloadable PDF resources
First-Generation Support
What is a First-Generation Student? Being a first-gen student means that your parent(s) did not complete a 4-year college or university degree, regardless of other family member’s level of education. If you have more questions about whether you may be a First-Generation student, check out Are You A First-Generation Student?
The Chaiken Center hosts celebrations for National First-Generation College Celebration week, workshops, alumni speakers, and cultivates leadership and community through our First-Generation College Committee.
Other ways we support our first-generation students are with a First-Generation graduation stoles and funding opportunities for internships, education abroad, undergraduate research, and professional development and graduate school application and preparation fees. Contact Patty Klug, Director, at pfk5256@psu.edu for more information.
Chaiken Scholars
In 2008, Gene and Roz Chaiken established the Chaiken Scholars program. Every year, roughly 50 Liberal Arts students are selected as Chaiken Scholars based on their academic achievements in high school. Chaiken Scholars receive financial support and access to special resources and programming, including a mentor, workshops, and get-togethers with the Chaiken Scholar community. Chaiken Scholars also have the opportunity to participate in the First-Year Chaiken Scholar Learning Community course.
Who are Gene and Roz Chaiken?
Gene (class of 1962) and Roz Chaiken’s love story began when they met at summer camp in 1959. They married in 1963 and have been supporting Penn State ever since, becoming the largest scholarship donors—and second-most generous benefactors overall—in University history along the way.
Their first major gift was in 1989, when they joined forces with Gene’s brother, Sheldon, and his wife, Gail, to endow the Chaiken Family Chair in Jewish Studies in the College of the Liberal Arts. They followed that gift with other philanthropic contributions to the Jewish Studies program, often encouraging other Liberal Arts benefactors to join them.
Perhaps their most significant contributions came when Roz, concerned with the rising cost of Penn State tuition, said she wanted to do something that would directly benefit students. The Penn State Trustee Scholarship Program offered the perfect solution; they decided to establish the Gene and Roz Chaiken Trustee Scholarship in 2008, followed in 2013 by the Chaiken Family Trustee Scholarship. In 2021, they created the Roz and Gene Chaiken Center for Student Success in the College of the Liberal Arts—a center designed to provide students with the resources, programming, and other support needed to help them succeed in their studies. A subsequent gift in 2024 led to the naming of four additional Chaiken Centers across the University.
Gene is a former member of the Penn State Board of Trustees and the Liberal Arts Development Council. He has received several honors from the University and the college for his leadership, philanthropy, and service. In honor of their legacy at Penn State and inspiring students to lead meaningful, generous lives, Gene and Roz were named Penn State Philanthropists of the Year in 2021. In recognition of their transformational 2021 gift that cemented their legacy as the largest scholarships donors in Penn State history, the Board of Trustees unanimously approved Gene and Roz’s request to name the Susan Welch Liberal Arts Building (which opened in January 2025) in honor of their friend who served as dean of the College of the Liberal Arts from 1991 to 2019.