“Resistance and Reimagination: Gender, Change, and the Arts”
April 8-10, 2021
Virtual Conference hosted by the 4W Initiative and the UW System Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium.
Stay tuned for video recordings and other highlights from our 2021 conference!
Continue exploring the Resistance and Reimagination Virtual Artist Exhibition here.
Click here to watch a Feminist Fireside Chat webinar on “Feminist Leadership, Education, and the Future: Can We Build Back Better?”
Bring more depth to the conversation with an article from DiPrete Brown and Dahlquist: Feminist Leadership and the 4W Initiative.
4W Director, Lori DiPrete Brown, highlights the work of 4W at Madison Civics Club.
4W’s session for 31 Days of Women & Leadership Learning: “Self-Care, Joy, and Thriving: Essential Practices for Leadership from the 4W Initiative”
Our Leadership
Our Leadership Circle
The 4W Leadership Circle is a collective of leaders representing almost all schools and colleges, working to make life better for women and make the world better for all.
4W Conveners: Engaging Our Campus
Lori DiPrete Brown, MSPH, M.T.S 
Director, 4W Initiative
“The opportunities for women in our world today are as great as the challenges. We who are involved with 4W—faculty, staff, students, supporters, and community partners—find hope, joy, and purpose in this shared work. We proceed with the awareness that we ourselves are a work in progress. We aim to grow in our ability to place the lived experiences of women and historically marginalized people at the center of our concerns. It is by directing the assets of UW-Madison toward these concerns that we make life better for women, make the world better for all, and provide an example of the ways in which higher education can engage in transformative societal change.”
Soyeon Shim, PhD
Dean, School of Human Ecology, UW-Madison
“From the very beginning, 4W’s leadership saw how women’s wellbeing intimately influenced the wellbeing of children, families, marketplaces, and communities the world over. They saw that human ecology nexus and invested in it wholeheartedly. I am proud that SoHE provided fertile ground to seed the 4W Initiative several years ago and that it has since gone on, thanks to the generous support of donors and grantmakers, to flower into such an impactful organization today.”
Janet Hyde, PhD
Chair, Department of Gender & Women’s Studies, University of Wisconsin- Madison
“The Department of Gender and Women’s Studies is united with the 4W Initiative in working toward the wellbeing of women in Wisconsin, the nation, and around the world. Gender and Women’s Studies does its part by offering dozens of relevant courses for undergraduates, such as our gender and women’s health course. Our faculty conduct pathbreaking research on gender and women’s issues. We are proud to be a co- convener of the 4W Initiative, which has ignited such excitement on campus.”
Jonathan Patz, MD, MPH
Director, Global Health Institute, UW-Madison
“Women are critical to addressing the crises facing us today: climate change, institutional racism, and the pandemic.”
Rebecca Blank, PhD
Chancellor, University of Wisconsin-Madison
“The School of Human Ecology, the Global Health Institute and the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies have created 4W with a strong partnership that brings together top researchers from many fields to focus on one central question: How do we harness the power of scientific knowledge to improve the lives of women around the world? This program can have a deep and lasting impact on women, their families, and their communities. And by creating international leadership and service learning opportunities for our students, 4W will inspire a new generation of scholars dedicated to women’s health and wellbeing.”