The Campus Diversity Initiative records are primarily composed of official and personal
documents created during the creation and implementation of the Design for Diversity,
Madison Plan, and Plan 2008 initiatives, all of which were broad projects carried out by the
University of Wisconsin which sought to increase campus diversity and improve the campus
climate for marginalized people.
Between 1986 and 1988 both the University of Wisconsin System Administration and the
University of Wisconsin-Madison began to devote significant resources to a number of
diversity related goals. Among these were: increasing the proportion of students from
marginalized groups in incoming freshman classes and retaining those students through to
graduation, increasing the proportion of faculty from marginalized groups, increasing the
availability and impact of financial aid resources for marginalized students, founding and
developing programs for outreach to Wisconsin communities, and redeveloping undergraduate
curricula to promote diverse perspectives and subject matter.
This collection includes material from the University of Wisconsin System, but is primarily
composed of documents the from University of Wisconsin-Madison. The System and Madison had
separate parallel diversity initiatives underway in the late 1980s with the System's plan
going by the name "Design for Diversity" and Madison's project going by "The Madison
Plan".
Design for Diversity was divided into several committees including the Committee on the
status of Minority Issues and the Undergraduate Teaching Improvement Council. The collection
materials on Design for Diversity are primarily correspondence from a wide variety of
administrators including then System President Kenneth A. Shaw and a number of UW System
administrators. The plan required that each Chancellor within the UW System would, within
one year, submit a comprehensive plan for the institutional improvement of minority
education. These processes are documented in the collection chiefly by the correspondence of
the Chancellors, President, and other administrators as well as copies of the reports
submitted by constituent institutions and other planning documentation. Documentation in
this collection regarding the Design for Diversity primarily covers the early stages of its
conception in 1987 through the early round of institutional reports in 1989.
Documentation surrounding the Madison Plan is much broader given that offices which
contributed material to the collection were primarily concerned with the UW-Madison campus.
Though Design for Diversity in some ways provided context for the Madison Plan, the
atmosphere around diversity planning on the Madison campus during the late 1980s was driven
by a number of high profile incidents of racial bias on campus which generated national
press attention. Madison Plan documentation, as a result, covers not just planning
documentation and administrative reports but also a great deal of contextual materials
including subject files on fraternity and race-relations incidents, material on student
conduct policies, and responses from student and staff special interest groups.
Madison Plan records themselves cover a wide variety of goals, standards, and programs.
These include: student financial assistance, student recruitment, student retention,
outreach and partnership programs, faculty and academic staff recruitment and retention,
undergraduate curriculum development (including the imposition of an ethnic studies
requirement for all students on campus), the creation of the campus Multicultural Student
Center, and maintenance of a non-discriminatory campus environment. Each of these programs
has its own administrative committees, many of which are represented in the collection by
reports and proceedings created between 1988 and 1990.
Finally, Plan 2008 was intended to be a continuation of the Design for Diversity. It
entered its initial planning stages in 1997 with the intent of presenting the plan to the
campus community in 1998, ten years after the initial adoption of the Design for Diversity,
and having the plan guide diversity practices on campus for the ensuing decade.
Plan 2008 documentation came to the UW Archives primarily through the personal and
professional papers of Professor Bernice Durand, who co-chaired the Steering Committee on
Diversity with Associate Vice Chancellor Paul Barrows. As a result the documentation, though
still capturing some broader context, is dependant of Professor Durand's activities
including a good deal of her correspondence, documentation of the activities of the
University Committee and the Faculty Senate. Durand was involved in more specific sections
of the Plan 2008's planning and execution as well, including the subcommittee on on Campus
Climate, working groups on curriculum, graduate and professional schools, human resources,
and undergraduate student issues. Box 4 of the collection is entirely drafts of Plan 2008
annotated by Durand and others. Durand had already been on campus at the time of the
original Madison Plan in the early 1980s and as a result her papers include some
documentation of the implementation of that plan including copies of the finalized plan and
of followup reports.
