UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Aiming to reinvigorate informed exchanges around polarizing issues, Penn State graduate and longtime volunteer James P. Jimirro has stepped forward with a $2 million gift to create a dialogue series that will feature prominent public figures coming together to discuss different viewpoints on controversial topics. The annual event, housed in the Schreyer Honors College and administered by the Presidential Leadership Academy, is projected to raise the University’s profile as a national leader in showcasing free speech in action and in championing an intellectual culture of open inquiry.

“Penn State has been a true leader in protecting the expression of views that run the entire ideological gamut,” Jimirro said. “My goal with this gift was to push that commitment to the next level by creating a platform for smart, engaging dialogue among opposing viewpoints. Ultimately, we want to set the gold standard for other universities to admire and emulate.”

The annual event, known as the Jim Jimirro Open for Debate Series, will be free of charge and open to the entire Penn State community, as well as members of the public. Planning for the series is on track for a launch date early in the 2025-26 academic year.

“With his executive background in the broadcasting and telecommunications industry, Jim understands firsthand how the flow of communication and dialogue is crucial to free and open society,” said Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi. “Now, thanks to his vision and leadership, this new dialogue series will draw esteemed experts to engage in thoughtful, rigorous discussion of some of our world’s most critical issues. I am truly grateful to Jim for entrusting Penn state to host this event that will help both our University community and our nation as a whole to build bridges, open doors and foster deeper understandings.”

The basic format for the event will be to select two high-profile guests, drawn from a pool of prominent academics, journalists, politicians, public intellectuals, thought leaders, innovators and jurists, who come equipped with rigorous arguments around a divisive issue. An impartial moderator will facilitate questions so the audience leaves with an understanding of the many sides of an issue. The series will be administered through the Presidential Leadership Academy, which trains high-achieving students with the leadership skills to negotiate complex problems and bridge differing perspectives. A steering committee is exploring how to engage a broad community in dialogue surrounding the series through pre- and post-event programming.

Born in a small town on the western edge of Pittsburgh, Jim Jimirro chose to remain in the commonwealth and attend Penn State, where he became a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity and honed his communication skills on radio broadcasting (WMFD), and with both the Penn State Players and Penn State Thespians. He earned his bachelor’s degree in arts and letters, followed by a master’s degree from Syracuse University. After returning to University Park for three additional years of graduate work, during which time he taught an introductory course on broadcasting and became the adviser for the Penn State Thespians, Jimirro struck out for New York, where he landed a job at CBS, then the dominant force in news and media.

Jimirro said his big break came when he was recruited by the Disney Company in 1974, which was still searching for a management vision in the wake of Walt Disney’s death eight years earlier. There, Jimirro championed the idea for what became The Disney Channel, which he created and launched in 1983. During his time at the helm of The Disney Channel, he was responsible for the conception, development and operation of the fastest-growing pay service in history and introduced many innovations, such as interactive programming and The Disney Channel Magazine.

Following his years at Disney, Jimirro started his own company, J2 Communications, in 1986, and after 19 successful years, he sold the company in 2005. Today, he is a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is active in a number of enterprises involving the Great American Songbook. He lectures on this body of music around the world through a series called "Jim J’s Jukebox," and in 2019 he started a theater company in New York, J2 Spotlight Musical Theater Company, which produces revivals of classic Broadway musicals. Many of his productions have featured graduates of the Penn State Musical Theatre Program.

As he continued to monitor multiple channels of media distribution in recent years, Jimirro became concerned about information silos, echo chambers and algorithmic sorting of data that reinforces biases and stokes outrage.

“We live in an era of tribal divisions,” Jimirro said. “Efforts to insult or cancel people who don’t think like you get perversely rewarded. That doesn’t bode well for solving real problems or sustaining a healthy democracy.”

But what particularly troubled him was that higher education, from his perspective, was not always rising to meet the challenge.

“Over the last decade or so, I’d become increasingly alarmed by campus climates nationwide that were becoming hostile to the expression of unpopular and dissenting views, with some groups even using threats and intimidation to disrupt events and silence guest speakers,” Jimirro said. “The more insidious problem is that you get a snowballing effect when students begin to censor themselves out of fear of blowback or even being ‘cancelled.’ But what I realized is this: Instead of sitting on the sidelines I could look for solutions. That led me to the idea of creating a platform for spirited conversations, grounded in evidence and reasoned argument, that inform and persuade audiences instead of demonizing or muzzling the opposing side.”

The dialogue series will enhance efforts already underway to reaffirm free speech as a cornerstone of Penn State’s mission, which Bendapudi has emphasized in several public video appearances and reinforced through the unveiling of a new University website focused on the First Amendment.

Jimirro’s gift to create the Open for Debate Series comes on the heels of decades of service and support to many areas of the University. In 2018, he endowed a $1 million professorship, the James P. Jimirro Professorship in Media Effects in the Bellisario College of Communications, which channels resources to enhance research and teaching on cutting-edge topics in media studies. In addition, he has served on the college’s Board of Visitors for many years, and he continues to mentor undergraduates from the Bellisario College by facilitating hands-on engagement with media industry contacts in Los Angeles, where Jimirro lives with his wife, Ajchara.

Jimirro was honored in 1985 with the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Penn State Alumni Association, and has garnered many other recognitions within and beyond the University.

“Courageous discovery is one of our core values in the Schreyer Honors College and it takes courage to engage with different viewpoints,” said Patrick Mather, dean of the Schreyer Honors College. “This series will be an ideal opportunity for students to sift evidence, question their own beliefs, listen across difference and cultivate skills in arriving at informed views on divisive issues. I am excited and energized to see all the ways this annual event sparks reflection and dialogue in the years ahead.”

Donors like Jim Jimirro advance the University’s historic land-grant mission to serve and lead. Through philanthropy, alumni and friends are helping students to join the Penn State family and prepare for lifelong success; driving research, outreach and economic development that grow our shared strength and readiness for the future; and increasing the University’s impact for families, patients and communities across the commonwealth and around the world. Learn more by visiting raise.psu.edu.