Registration is now open to attend the 2022 UW–Madison Diversity Forum — “The Power of Remembering: Reclaiming Our Legacies to Imagine New Futures” — which will be held Nov. 14 & 15 at Union South with options to participate in-person and online. As always, the Diversity Forum is free and open to the public.

The 2022 Diversity Forum will feature a keynote address by Harvard historian, author and professor Dr. Tiya Miles. A widely esteemed public historian, award-winning author and recipient of the MacArthur Genius Award, Miles’s work explores the intersections of African American, Native American and women’s histories in the 19th-century American South, Midwest and West. Her latest book, “All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake,” won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2021.

The 2022 conference will focus on history: how we can better tell previously untold stories, what we can learn from our shared history and how we can use those lessons to move toward a more equitable and inclusive future. The theme will work in alignment with UW–Madison’s Public History Project public exhibit, “Sifting & Reckoning: UW–Madison’s History of Exclusion and Resistance,” at the Chazen Museum of Art, and the 2022-23 Go Big Read selection, “How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America” by Clint Smith. In-person attendees will have an opportunity to attend a special reception at the Sifting & Reckoning exhibit at the Chazen Museum from 4:30 – 6 p.m. on Nov. 14.

“Our nation is in the midst of a reckoning with our history that is important, sometimes uncomfortable, and long overdue,” said Dr. LaVar J. Charleston, UW–Madison deputy vice chancellor and chief diversity officer, whose office organizes the Diversity Forum each year. “As we work to rediscover and share the stories, voices and legacies of the individuals and communities that our society has disregarded for too long, I could not imagine a better voice to bring to our campus than Dr. Tiya Miles. Her work is as vital and fearless as it is compassionate and poignant. I am so excited to bring a scholar doing such important work to the University of Wisconsin–Madison at a time when we are rededicating ourselves to telling the fuller history of our campus and our country.”

Dates: November 14 & 15, 2022
Times: 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Central Time (times are subject to change)
Location: Union South, Varsity Hall (2nd floor), 1308 W. Dayton St., Madison, WI (virtual attendees will receive emailed instructions before the conference begins)
Cost: Free
Contact: events@cdo.wisc.edu
Learn more: diversityforum.wisc.edu
Agenda: go.wisc.edu/df22-agenda

Read more about Tiya Miles and Register