Campus diversity educator wins YWCA Racial Justice Award

A leader in encouraging respect and understanding at UW–Madison and in the larger community has received the YWCA’s Racial Justice Award for 2004.

Seema Kapani, UW–Madison’s diversity education coordinator in the Equity and Diversity Resource Center (EDRC), helped establish and now directs six university-based diversity learning programs: Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity (SEED), SEEDED, student SEED, Excellence Through Diversity, the Leadership Institute and Leadership at Lunch. Initially open to UW–Madison faculty and staff starting in 2000, these programs have expanded to welcome students and members of other institutions.

“We strive to develop capacities and competencies for creating authentically inclusive teaching, learning and working environments that enable individuals to achieve success,” she says. “It’s humbling and encouraging that all of these programs are well received — we have waiting lists for all of them.”

Kapani has been at the EDRC since 1998. Before that, she served as assistant director for International Students and Scholar Services. She says that working in these positions has underscored the need for diversity education, and she hopes university administrators will take advantage of the opportunity.

“I strongly believe that for us to truly achieve excellence and have a campus community which is authentically inclusive, our top leadership gently needs to engage all of us by joining us in the trenches,” she says. “Gandhi said, ‘You need to model the change you want to see in the world.’ It will be powerful to see all of us walking the walk. We have tremendous human capital that we have not tapped into. I am deeply concerned that there are very few avenues for our appointed leaders to hone their capabilities.”

For information about the university’s racial, ethnic and cultural diversity programs, visit http://www.wisc.edu/edrc/.