
{"articleDetail":{"publishDateDisplay":"March 4, 2026","summary":"Fifteen students competed in the annual Envision program in January 2026, challenged to propose solutions for local transportation access and mobility infrastructure.","image":"site://geneva.edu/stories/_assets/envision-group-header.jpg","tagItems":"[]","articleText":"Fifteen Geneva students&#160;participated&#160;in the second annual Envision&#160;program&#160;at the B-HIVE in downtown Beaver Falls on Saturday, January 31.&#160;Envision,&#160;an annual event&#160;hosted by&#160;a team from the Student Development department&#160;and&#160;funded&#160;through the ECI'apos;s&#160;Institutional Impact Grant,&#160;challenges&#160;third-year students to consider how they might develop solutions toward local problems through their fields&#160;of study.&#160;Cross-disciplinary&#160;student&#160;groups are guided by&#160;community members and college faculty in understanding&#160;a&#160;multifaceted issue before&#160;they&#160;develop and present a&#160;proposal that addresses the issue.&#160;The event takes place&#160;at the&#160;Beaver Valley Hub for Innovation, Venture,&#160;and Entrepreneurship,&#160;more commonly known as the B-HIVE.&#160;This&#160;year&#8217;s prompt was &#8220;Transportation&#160;Access and Mobility&#160;Infrastructure.&#8221;&#160;Students heard from several&#160;community&#160;experts on the subject before taking time to consider and plan. Divided into teams of three, each student group gave a &#8220;Shark Tank-style\"quot; presentation to a&#160;panel of judges, who&#160;considered&#160;the proposals made by each team and chose a winner at the end of the night.&#160;\nThis year, five teams considered how transportation&#160;access&#160;might be&#160;addressed&#160;in&#160;Beaver&#160;County. The purpose of the event, as Sarah Faulkner, the assistant director for Geneva&#8217;s Center for Calling &amp; Career, shared at the close of the night, is to remind students that &#8220;you don&#8217;t have to wait until graduation to impact your community.&#8221; This was certainly a message that the fifteen participants took to heart. A diversity of majors and&#160;class&#160;years&#160;participated, with students&#160;representing&#160;majors such as&#160;engineering, social services,&#160;English, communication design,&#160;and computer science. Each team offered their own unique spin of improving transportation&#160;access in Beaver County, suggesting ideas&#160;such as&#160;repaving sidewalks with stamped concrete and installing audible traffic signals to help disabled pedestrians, retrofitting public buses with more storage space,&#160;and&#160;painting crosswalks to beautify Beaver Falls for pedestrians.&#160;&#160;\n&#8220;There&#8217;s strong competition,&#8221;&#160;junior Odin Kulp commented as he watched the presentations. But&#160;Odin&#160;and others&#160;also shared&#160;that there was &#8220;low pressure,&#8221; and the event progressed in a spirit of good sportsmanship.&#160;\nAs the last two presentations finished, with laughter and joking between the judges and the contestants, the audience settled in for a brief wait, chatting about the presentations. After only a few minutes, the judges&#160;emerged&#160;to announce the winning team. This year&#8217;s winners were&#160;engineering major Peter Samuelsen,&#160;finance major Winter Wilson, and&#160;computer science major&#160;Henry Trevisan. Their leading proposal was to&#160;artistically&#160;paint several crosswalks throughout Beaver Falls to beautify the city and make the crosswalks more visible for drivers.&#160;\nWith the Envision Project returning next year,&#160;event organizers hope&#160;to see yet another group of dedicated students at the B-HIVE, ready to&#160;seek&#160;ways to serve&#160;our&#160;Beaver&#160;County&#160;neighbors&#160;while learning.&#160;\nBy Luke MacKenzie &#8216;26&#160;","author":null,"publishDate":"2026-03-04","type":"Stories","title":"Envision 2026:&#160;Envisioning a&#160;Change in Transportation&#160;Access and Mobility&#160;Infrastructure","imageDesc":"","url":"/article/envision-2026","blogCategories":"","id":"b5adf38aac0a24047827934209de5c3e","detailUrl":"/stories/2026/03/envision-2026.json","sourcePath":null,"slug":"envision-2026"}}
