On October 16, 2014, Dr. Edward Jackson Jr, President of ArchD Consulting Co., Ltd from America and Mr. Lei Yixin, an internationally renowned sculptor jointly presented a lecture to all new students about Martin Luther King sculpture in the library on Yuntang Campus.

Dr. Edward Jackson has over 40 years of experience in architectural planning, design and project management. In his career, he has served a lot of positions. The most significant positions include: executive architect for Martin Luther King National Memorial Project; CEO and President of ArchD Consulting Ltd.; director of research for American Institute of Architects; lecturer at School of Baylor University; Head of hospital services in US Cooper-Leibniz Rand Certified Public Accountants (Coopers & Lybrand).

Lei Yixin, Vice President of Hunan Provincial Artists Association, Deputy Dean of Hunan Provincial Painting Academy and Dean of Hunan Sculpture Academy, expert with State Council special allowance, national First-grade artist and international sculptor, is the author of the sculpture of Martin Luther King on The Washington National Square.

In the lecture, Dr. Jackson introduced the Martin Luther King sculpture and prepared a wonderful PPT to show the process of the construction of the sculpture, which was a huge project and exquisite design. Dr. Jackson interacted with the students and the latter responded actively to Dr. Jackson's cheerful humor.

Dr. Jackson believed that the success of Mr. Lei’s sculpture lay in the capture of the essence of Martin Luther King, which was inspired by the phrase “to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope” from his famous speech "I Have a Dream".