The University of Wisconsin system awarded this year’s Women of Color in Education Award to an honoree from every UW school in the state.

Stacey Jackson, an assistant professor in psychology and counselor at counseling services, was the UW-Eau Claire honoree for this year’s award.

According to the UW system website, the Women of Color in Education Award is an award given to women of color for their leadership in making contributions to their campuses or community.

This award was first created in 1994 and has been awarded to women from all 13 UW schools, being awarded to over 400 individuals. Also according to the UW system website, the honorees are decided by each campus’s chancellor. 

The chancellor receives consultations from organizations on their campuses including multicultural coordinators, women’s studies administrators, ethnic studies administrators, LGBTQ+ coordinators and chief diversity officers.

The award is given to honorees who fostered social justice or organizational change, created positive changes for their institutions in regard to Equity, Diversion and Inclusion (EDI) and improved the climate for people of color.

According to Jackson, the honorees were originally nominated at the beginning of the semester and the 2022 award ceremony for the recipients was on Nov. 10.

“The fact that the UW system views this work as being important, as work that needs to be highlighted and recognized, and the fact that the honorees aren’t people hired to do this work but are passionate and are voluntarily giving their time, energy, efforts, money, resources,” Jackson said.

Each nominee was asked to fill out a bio of their work done at their respective campuses. Those bios can be found on the UW systems website under Awards and Grants.

Jackson’s bio detailed her work on the UW-Eau Claire Campus. Her work started with her course, Black Psychology, becoming a regular course in the Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality Studies department.

Jackson served as a faculty coordinator for the Civil Rights Pilgrimage, more articles on this can be found on the Spectator website. Jackson also started the Marginalized Identity Status and Trauma research lab, or MIST, here at UW-Eau Claire. 

According to the MIST website, they study factors that affect the academic achievement and mental health of students, with a special focus on social justice empowering marginalized students on campus.

When looking at Jackson’s work in Counseling Services, her bio details her work creating a student-of-color support group and her help in creating a psychoeducational guide for UW-Eau Claire staff to use to identify and support student mental health.

This session is used by the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in their EDI professional certificate program, as well as by athletic coaches and staff.

When asked about what message this article and this award could get out there, Jackson pointed out that there have been negative messages regarding EDI at this institution and all of the UW systems.

“This award, this recognition and knowing that there are individuals who are across the system that are dedicated to this type of work, hopefully, that can be encouraging, motivating, allow for some optimism,” Jackson said.

Fisher can be reached at [email protected].