The Office of the Vice Provost and Chief Diversity Officer Damon Williams sponsored an evening dinner featuring a six-person panel of University of Wisconsin-Madison alumni Thursday, to kick off the 2012 Diversity Forum.
The forum, entitled “An Evening of Alumni and Student Conversations on Leadership,” aimed to showcase young, diverse UW-Madison alumni who now work as professionals and to advise current undergraduates about making the most of their college experience.
The panel featured six recent graduates from UW-Madison who discussed their experiences at UW-Madison and how to best take advantage of the university’s resources.
“What I want to happen is by the end of your experience, you are fully ready to be employed, you are fully ready to lead and you have leveraged each and every opportunity that exists at this great university to your maximal benefit,” Williams said.
Mostly freshman in the PEOPLE, POSSE, Center for Educational Opportunity, and First Wave organizations attended the event. PEOPLE student Pamanisha Gross said she enjoyed the forum and its emphasis on networking and being aggressive about seeking out opportunities.
“It helped that there were role models from UW-Madison, rather than say, Yale, talking about all the things that they did,” said Gross. “I have the same opportunities that they have.”
Senior Erika Dickerson, a First Wave scholar and leader of the student organization “For Colored Girls” Project said the forum was inspiring regardless of grade level, but added that it is “exceptionally important for young students of color to see professionals of color that have graduated from this university.”
The Diversity Forum continues Friday at Union South with opening remarks from Damon Williams and Interim Chancellor David Ward at 9 a.m.
The forum will include break-out sessions discussing the Human Resources Redesign as it relates to diversity, as well as the LGBT and Native American experiences on campus.
The keynote speaker, Harvard law professor Lani Guinier, will discuss issues of access to higher education in the national context of the Fisher v. University of Texas Supreme Court case dealing with affirmative action.
