Two College of Letters & Science graduate students were honored at the 2023 UW–Madison Outstanding Women of Color Awards. Molli Pauliot (’19, ’20), a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology, and Alexandra Villa (’20), a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geoscience, received the awards at a ceremony held in March 2024. Nominations for the 2024 awards are open through Sept. 27. The awards honor women of color whose advocacy, activism or scholarship have fostered social justice and organizational change while improving the climate for, or status of, people of color.
We sat down with both women to ask them about their work on campus:
Molli Pauliot
You are the artist and advocate behind the Ho-Chunk banners that are displayed outside Bascom Hall. What has that experience been like for you?
There has been a lot of positive feedback from the tribe and tribal members. I was at an art exhibit the following week, and they said to me, “Oh my God, Molli, we were all watching that. They had you on all the screens at the community center.” And I said, “Really?” And they said “Yeah, we’re all really proud of you.”
These banners have built more awareness of Ho-Chunk history here on campus. Why do you think awareness is so important?
I was doing a training one time with these young kids and their social workers who had graduated from college, and I explained to them that Ho-Chunk had recently changed our constitution and went back to our name, from what used to be Winnebago. They didn’t even know that. They grew up in the state of Wisconsin and they went to school right outside of Milwaukee. They said, “Oh, is that why we have a Winnebago Street?” Well, yes it is! But they didn’t even have that basic knowledge of Indian people.
When you think about the future of this campus and the work that you’re doing, what would meaningful change look like to you?
I want every student to get a touch of American Indian history and knowledge in their experience so that it’s not something that’s new to them and when they do leave this place, they don’t sound ignorant about Indian people. Because that’s really the big thing, and if they know our history, then they know part of their history. And one of the things that I tried to say when we raised the banners was that everybody is part of the story. Once you’ve gone to school here, this is part of your life story — this area, this community — it’s part of who you are.
What’s the future for these banners?
My goal was for them to go ahead and use it in different ways so that it’s something that can keep on being perpetuated. It’s the Wisconsin Idea – you plant a seed and then another one and another one and the idea just keeps growing and growing and growing and getting bigger.
Alexandra Villa
When you came to UW, you started doing DEI work as a graduate student. What inspired you to get started?
I first asked myself, “What does UW have going on?” for diverse students. I went to different meetings and events on campus to find out, but I realized that there wasn’t anything like what I was looking for. So I thought, “Well, I guess I’ll just get started on that.” At that point, I had met some people in my program who thought similarly, and they supported my idea of what I wanted to do. We had formal meetings where we discussed initiatives and next steps but we also discussed the issues that plague the geosciences and higher education at large. These initial meetings materialized into a formal group called GeoPath.
Why do you think it’s important for groups like GeoPath to exist?
It’s important to get like-minded people together. There is more leverage when working as a group and the group benefits from having multiple voices and experiences come together. This work isn’t individualistic, and groups are essential for enacting change and advocating for something.
GeoPath isn’t your only DEI-related initiative. What other work have you done on campus?
I’ve also worked with the College of Letters & Science through the Dean’s Office on DEI-related initiatives and programming through my role as the Wisconsin Experience Graduate Student Fellow. In this role I have served as the graduate student representative on the DEI Committee for the College, managed the Community of Graduate Research Scholars and created new programming including the first graduation celebration for the scholars, established listening sessions with Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, DeVon Wilson, among other projects with DEI leaders in the College.
Multiple people nominated you for this award. How does it feel to have so many people acknowledge that your work has made a difference?
It’s been difficult to process because these amazing, brilliant people who have important jobs recognize the work that I’ve put into the department, College and University and have taken the time to nominate me. This is a huge award, and a huge honor, but at the same time, it’s been difficult to celebrate when there’s still so much work to be done.
If you’re looking in the future, what changes do you hope to see?
I see a major challenge in the metrics we use to define and understand organizational change, specifically when it comes to understanding the experiences of diverse students. We largely rely on demographics and attrition rates as metrics for “success” so for me, a goal would be that we find new ways to collect, measure and define the non-quantitative elements of organizational change and social justice in higher education.