Overview: Learning and Growing by Doing

Members of the 4W Leadership Circle have offered courses ranging from highly subscribed lectures to intimate seminars on subjects related to 4W concerns and values. Since 4W’s inception, over 2,000 students have taken courses offered by leaders on issues including education and global change, finance and the family, design and microenterprise, gender and human rights, public health, women’s psychology, intersectional approaches to literature, and more.

Watch this video made by UW-Madison student Nia Cayenne during her field course experience in Spain and Morocco during summer 2019. Under the leadership of Dr. Araceli Alonso, students learning innovative techniques used for identifying survivors of trafficking and helping with rehabilitation.

Around the world, over 100 students have completed field programs and internships that provide on the ground experience in the USA, Ecuador, Mexico, Kenya, Nepal, India, Ghana, Spain, and Morocco. 4W is committed to learning by doing in the form of internships, action research, and immersion study. Through partnership with the Women’s Philanthropy Council and generous private gifts, 4W aims to financially support a minimum of 15 students per year in engaged learning related to our 4W priorities and activities.

The 4W EmpowerHour network is composed of more than 35 emerging scholars and early career professionals in fields ranging from public health to sociology to agriculture, unified by a common interest in applied and action research around gender and wellbeing in Wisconsin and around the world. The group meets throughout the semester, sometimes as part of a formal program, and sometimes as a space to have a snack, talk about a selected theme, share resources, and offer each other professional and moral support.