The University of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association announced the Raimey-Noland Campaign on Wednesday as an addition to the existing All Ways Forward campaign.
The Raimey-Noland Campaign will aim to aid diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across campus and creates a fund for Chancellor Rebecca Blank to effectively provide resources for diversity, equity and inclusion goals. It also provides members of the Madison community with specific guidance to support increased diversity across campus.
The five goals the Raimey-Noland Campaign will focus on are increasing diversity within the student body, increasing diversity of campus faculty, supporting students to ensure they succeed academically, creating a more inclusive community on campus and prioritizing research that will help mitigate social and racial equity issues.
Blank shared a blog post detailing the goals of this new campaign.
“These initiatives represent a collective institutional commitment to our students, faculty, staff and alumni of color,” Blank said. “A campus-wide workgroup developed the concept for the Raimey-Noland Campaign and helped identify the fundraising priorities to address the most promising diversity, equity and inclusion programs.”
The campaign will be an extension of Blank’s $10 million diversity fundraising efforts last summer. UW alumni and friends have committed to helping the university fund this new initiative in order to increase diversity and inclusion on campus.
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Blank detailed in her blog post how this new initiative will continue to boost representation of underrepresented communities on campus.
“Over the last decade, the presence of underrepresented undergraduate students of color on campus has grown from 9.9 percent in 2011 to 11.7 percent of the student body in 2020,” Blank said. “During the same period, the presence of faculty of color from underrepresented groups has increased from 6.9 to 9.4 percent, while all faculty of color have increased from 17.9 percent to 24.6 percent of the university’s faculty.”
The Raimey-Noland Campaign is named for the first known Black woman and man to graduate from UW — William Smith Noland and Mabel Watson Raimey. It is a part of UW’s All Ways Forward initiative, which aims to modernize UW and push it forward.
