Law, Politics, and Society club hosts first-ever Redhawk Talks

The Law, Politics, and Society Club (LPS) at SEMO hosted a groundbreaking event whose purpose is to promote civic engagement and educate people amid the excitement around the upcoming elections.

Students, alongside community members, gathered to discuss various political topics using the National Issues Forum held in the University Center on Feb. 20. Each table contained a student member of the LPS club serving as a moderator to ensure civility and a well-educated balance.

The primary objective behind this event is to help inform SEMO students about elections as well as promote voter registration.

The conversations were all guided through a structured setup using the National Issues Forum. The forums are conducted by various organizations and individuals, providing people with the opportunity to deliberate, to make choices with others about ways to approach difficult issues and to work toward creating reasoned public judgment.

The Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dr. Bain-Selbo was at the head of the entirety of the event. Bain-Selbo has much experience, even outside of the classroom with leading the National Issues Forum discussions.

“I have used the National Issues Forum before,” said Bain-Selbo. “They are a wonderful way to get people together and have a conversation that’s structured and provides the information people need to have a conversation that is factual and provides everyone an opportunity to share their opinions.”

Senior political science and criminal justice major Brock Freeman, among other students, thinks the event was in a secure environment where discussions revolve around the fundamental principle of 'agreeing to disagree.'

“I think a lot of the time people shy away from politics because of that controversy,” said Freeman. “We have to get to a place where we can learn how to have conversations although we have different values and I think this is a place and forum that does this.”

Junior political science and Spanish major Martha Lejarazu is the president of the LPS club. According to Lejarazu, the club felt that this was an important event to be held, with it being a Presidential election year, especially in terms of registering to vote.

“We felt that our civil duty to the community should be to involve students in the participation of voting and just overall registering to vote,” said Lejarazu.

Redhawk Talks is in the works to make another appearance in the near future so that students will once again have the opportunity to come together and partake in civil conversations.

“We don’t have to get locked into that false division that the media and political parties want us to, but we can see that there is a third option,” said Freeman. “And that third option is working together and seeing that together united, we stand.”