On Friday, Nov. 10, Winona State University celebrated the 50th anniversary of Students United with a celebration.

The celebration was created to get students together to recognize that the student run organization has been working with schools for 50 years. The organization helps current students and helps to better the school for future students.

Lea Steele, public relations specialist for Students United, described how Students United works at Winona State and what they do as a group for students.

“[Students United] mostly advocates on behalf of students and what issues students want to see brought up, taken care of or be worked on,” Steele said.

Each year the independent, non-profit organization, which is financed and operated by students, decides on a few topics that seem to be popular amongst the student body and decides what to focus on.

These topics are chosen by those at Winona State, according to Steele.

“Each year [the topics] are submitted via survey by campus committee members and other student leaders (i.e. students from Senate),” Steele said. “[Then] the feedback given from the survey is looked over and finalized by the Board of Directors. The issues are brought up by students and decided on by students.”

Winona State has chosen three main issue campaigns to focus on this year. They are affordability, inclusion and diversity and student success and wellness.

Steele described affordability with the example of more affordable textbooks.

This affordability issue campaign was brought on by students who believed that Winona State’s and Minnesota State Schools could have better prices for students in the categories of tuition, as well as required supplies for student’s classes such as specific textbooks that professors will ask for while students are taking their classes.

The Students United group also tabled for Halloween, where they setup a table to provide information focusing on inclusion and diversity. They shared information to students about what costumes were appropriate and which costumes were not appropriate for them to wear, focusing on costumes that were deemed culturally offensive or cultural appropriation.

Students United is open to students who are enrolled at Winona State and students can get involved by volunteering with the group or being on the Students United committee.

Steele described some of the things that volunteers can do which included tabling, like sitting at the club fair and informing others about the organization.

Steele also said that there are no major obligations for those that volunteer and if you cannot help at every single Students United event that is okay.

For those that want to be on the committee, Steele said they run interviews usually at the beginning of the year for those positions.

Students United is a program that is present at Minnesota’s seven state universities.