The University of Wisconsin-Madison will honor six women on March 7 with its 2016-2017 Outstanding Women of Color awards, presented to women who have been heavily involved in the campus as well as the Madison community through their work toward research and civic enrichment. The event will take place at the Edgewater Hotel in downtown Madison.
In 2007, UW-Madison launched an annual program of awards to women of color for outstanding service in higher education following in the footsteps of the UW System, which began their program of celebrating such women in 1994.
The System has discontinued their program, but UW-Madison has decided to continue honoring women of color doing extraordinary work on campus and in the larger Madison community. “The growing campus-wide awareness of the annual honor focusing on women and their achievements continues to be very gratifying,” Ruby Paredes, associate vice provost in the Office of the Vice Provost and Chief Diversity Officer, told UW. “As I’ve stated in the past, we are not honoring these women simply for being women of color. These are women in higher education and the community who deserve to be recognized for their outstanding work, tremendous leadership, and personal contributions to our society. That’s the purpose of the award.”
The annual campus and community reception is hosted by the Office of the Vice Provost & Chief Diversity Officer. This year’s recipients include:
* Fabu Phillis Carter, poet, scholar, teaching artist, and outreach specialist for the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center of the School of Medicine & Public Health;
* Binnu Palta Hill, director of Diversity and Inclusion for the Wisconsin School of Business;
* Joan Fujimura, professor, Department of Sociology and Holtz Center for Research on Science and Technology;
* Denise Thomas, coordinator of Title VII American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), Madison Metropolitan School District; and
* Julissa Ventura, Ph.D. candidate in Educational Policy Studies and Fellow of the Morgridge Center for Public Service Community-University Exchange-South Madison.
