MLK Day

Monday, Jan. 19, 2026:
Expressions of Change: Arts for Advocacy

For Wartburg College, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a day on, not a day off. Students, faculty, and staff spend the holiday focusing on community and how we treat each other through classwork, activities, and service.

Opening Event

1:45 p.m., McCaskey Lyceum

Breakout Sessions Round 1

2:15-2:45 p.m.
Join one of these four discussions:

Poetry as a Heartbeat

Hagemann Castle Room

Join Daniel Umemezie, a Nigerian-American poet serving as the 2025 Cedar Valley Youth Poet Laureate and 2025–26 Iowa Student Poet Ambassador, and published and award-winning poet and professor Kim Groninga to explore identity, family, politics, and place through the written word.

Love Is Power: Strength Through Community Art

Buckmaster (WBC 214)

Heidi Fuchtman is an artist and the founder of Youth Art Team, a Waterloo-based nonprofit. Sophie Matlock is a student and nine-year Youth Art Team artist. Learn about young artists who interviewed neighbors, family members, and community leaders and how these conversations inspired a public mural about the Cedar Valley’s civil rights history.

Story Circles

Heritage Room

During the Civil Rights Movement, the practice of Story Circles was used to build relationships across deep difference. Experience this powerful practice for yourself, guided by Chaplain Maggie. You will be invited to share what you are passionate about and to listen attentively to others — without the expectation to respond — simply receiving the gift of each other’s experiences. 

Music of the Civil Rights Movement

McCaskey Lyceum

Explore the sounds of the Civil Rights Movement with Molly Doran and students from her Music of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries course. Doran’s students will give mini presentations on songs that fueled the movement, including “We Shall Overcome,” “Mississippi Goddam,” and “I’ve Been ‘Buked and I’ve Been Scorned.”

Breakout Sessions Round 2

3-3:30 p.m.
Choose a second discussion from the four options.

Discussion & Closing

3:45 p.m., McCaskey Lyceum
Talk more about what you’ve just learned and hear about other breakout sessions.

Shortened Class Schedule
• Period 1 (7:45 a.m.) 7:45-8:35 a.m.
• Period 2 (9 a.m.) 8:45-9:35 a.m.
• Period 3 (10:45 a.m.) 9:45-10:35 a.m.
• Period 4 (noon) 10:45-11:35 a.m.
• Period 5 (1:15 p.m.) 11:45 a.m. to 12:35 p.m.
• Period 6 (2:30 p.m.) 12:45-1:35 p.m.
Evening classes meet as scheduled.