Miranda Coulthard / Winonan

Winona State University students had the day off Monday, Jan. 18 in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., and in accordance with this day, a forum hosted in East Hall of Kryzsko Commons called the “American Democracy Project: Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.”

The forum’s speaker was Dr. Kara Lindaman, a political science professor at Winona State.

According to the organization, the American Democracy Project is an initiative that multiple campuses are a part of. Their goal is to take the next generation of citizens and prepare them for democracy. Winona State happens to be one of the 250 colleges to participate in this project.

According to the American Democracy Project,  the Martin Luther King Day of service is a day for Americans from all walks of life to work with one another to solve our nation’s high-priority issues. This day of service became a federal holiday in 1983, according to American Democracy Project.

To prepare Winona State students for democracy, this year’s forum was focused on a major issue in which most students are immersed within: economic inequality.

Students had the choice to either participate online or in person for this particular forum.

Student Taylor Fish, 19, attended the forum online. Fish said the forum allowed students to share their ideas.

“This forum was a lot about our ideas as far as a lot of major decisions that are going on right now, like where we [students] are putting our money and what kind of things we are deciding to invest in, whether it be education or helping those that are in need right now,” Fish said.

Fish said Dr. Lindaman did a phenomenal job of letting the students that participated in the forum discuss why they thought or understood something a certain way.

“She did a really great job of allowing us all to have opinions and bringing up questions that were important to just dig deeper and really understand why we felt the way that we did,” Fish said.

The feedback will be used for the Public Voice conference in Washington D.C. in May. According to Public Voice, they are an organization that pursues topics issues ranging from privacy and freedom of expression to consumer protection.