Starting this fall, the University of Wisconsin will be home to a first-of-its-kind program focused on developing campus diversity through spoken word and hip-hop culture.
The First Wave Spoken Word and Urban Arts Learning Community is the nation's first university-based program to use hip-hop art and culture to improve learning and promote a more welcoming place for students of diverse backgrounds.
The program has recruited a group of 15 students based on their artistic abilities and leadership potential to attend UW on full-tuition scholarships.
"The idea of the program is to bring a new group of students every year to help change the culture of this place and make it not only a talented campus, but an exciting and vibrant one," program director Josh Healey said. "It's not just art for art's sake, but [also for] using it as a tool for empowerment and social change."
Healey said First Wave works alongside the MultiCultural Student Coalition and other existing organizations to develop programming to expand multiculturalism on campus.
"We are not trying to reinvent the wheel, just [trying to] move the car along," Healey said.
Students interested in the program must first be accepted to UW and then undergo an application process conducted by a committee from the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives.
Healey said the program currently only accepts incoming first year and transfer students. This year's group includes dancers, poets, emcees, graphic designers and breakdancers — or, "B-boys and B-girls."
First Wave student Kelsey Van Ert said she was drawn to UW for the program and involvement opportunities from her previous school, Augsburg College in Minnesota.
"The school I went to wasn't diverse either, but it seems like Madison is working on changing that," said Van Ert, the only sophomore in the group.
She is a poet, emcee and break dancer from St. Paul, Minn., and has performed with the Minnesota Spoken Word Association and Teens Rock the Mic, both initiatives to promote spoken word and hip-hop among local teens.
Scholars will work with Madison-area high school students to promote hip-hop as a way of learning and to raise the number of students of color attending college.
Lana Simpson, another First Wave student, said a college education is not only focused on classes, but on the community as well.
Simpson, a Chicago native, was accepted to other universities but decided to attend UW due to the opportunities she saw in the program.
According to Haley, First Wave students already have several gigs lined up on campus and across the nation.
They will be performing in several venues in Wisconsin as well as California and Florida, debuting as feature performers in the annual "Passing the Mic Showcase" at the Memorial Union Theater Oct. 13.
The Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives will also promote a monthly Spoken Word Open Mic Night hosted by First Wave scholars and open to all UW students.
