University life forum to discuss ‘hot topic’ politics

Honors University Life (UL) classes have joined together to host a political forum on Sept. 22 in Chapman Auditorium. The classes will discuss political “hot topics” and invite the FMU community to attend.

Each year, the Honors’ UL classes have a community service component in which students participate. In the past, the classes have held food drives, volunteered at the Florence Area Humane Society and painted the House of Hope.

Dr. Jon Tuttle, director of FMU Honors, said that this year the four UL Honors classes decided to participate in something politically involved because it is an election year. It will be a two part program.

The first part is the political forum, in which six committees made up of the UL honors students will present short sections. Tuttle said each of these will present a different political issue.

According to Tuttle, one of these issues is the idea of raising the federal minimum wage to $15. They will also discuss the issues of military combat and draft for women as well as the requirement of voter IDs.

Tuttle said that the final three issues that will be discussed are gender-neutral bathrooms, concealed carry gun laws on campuses and free college tuition. The committees will discuss the possibilities of these issues and the different viewpoints surrounding them.

According to Tuttle, each of these “hot topic” issues is relevant to students and has the ability to affect their personal lives. They can also affect FMU as a whole, he said.

Tuttle said that each of the committees created a flier that will be passed out to the audience during the forum and that it will last about an hour.

The second part of this program will occur during late September or early October. The UL Honors students will have tables set up around campus to register students to vote. The goal of this, according to Tuttle, is to make voting easily accessible to students so that they will be more likely to become politically involved.

According to Tuttle, freshmen FMU students have organized the entire program.

“I’m really proud of what these students have done,” Tuttle said. “It’s their first year in college and they’re getting up to their knees in some pretty difficult issues. They’ve done a fantastic job.”