First announced in January 2023, the center will will be devoted to educating the campus community about the university’s past in ways that will enrich the curriculum, inform administrative decisions and bolster efforts to achieve a more equitable university.
The report includes both successes and challenges in the unprecedented effort to uncover and reckon with a fuller telling of the university’s history. In July, the project’s work and mission will carry on in the form of the Rebecca M. Blank Center for Campus History, housed within the Division for Teaching and Learning.
UW–Madison’s Public History Project, set to conclude this summer, will continue and expand its work as a new, permanent entity to be called the Rebecca M. Blank Center for Campus History.
Since opening Sept. 12, the Public History Project’s Sifting & Reckoning exhibit has already engaged more than 10,000 visitors in person and online.
Students played a crucial role in conducting research for the Public History Project and its exhibit, Sifting and Reckoning: UW–Madison’s History of Exclusion and Resistance. In the process, they learned much about the student experience during various points in the university’s history.
Students explored many aspects of the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s past during Student Night at the Public History Project on Sept. 29 at the Chazen Museum of Art.
The Public History Project is part of a broader collection of efforts to create a more welcoming and inclusive campus.