Aaron Bird Bear is a citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa & Diné Nations (enrolled in the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation) and has served as the Director of Tribal Relations at UW–Madison since 2019.

Bird Bear came to UW–Madison in 2000 as the American Indian Student Academic Services coordinator in the College of Letters & Science. From 2009 to 2019, he worked in the School of Education, most recently as an assistant dean responsible for leadership around recruiting, supporting and retaining historically underrepresented undergraduate and graduate students. Bird Bear co-created WisconsinFirstNations.org to help PK-12 educators identify quality resources to teach the history, culture and tribal sovereignty of the 12 American Indian Nations of Wisconsin.

In 2003, Bird Bear helped develop the UW-Madison First Nations Cultural Landscape Tour, a place-based, experiential education tour of American Indian landmarks on the UW–Madison campus. He co-leads the Our Shared Future Initiative that is creating signs honoring the Native presence on campus, including the new “Our Shared Future” marker on Bascom Hill that recognizes the land as the ancestral home of the Ho-Chunk.

LaVar J. Charleston, Ph.D., is the deputy vice chancellor for diversity & inclusion at UW–Madison. He serves as vice provost and chief diversity officer for the university as well as the Elzie Higginbottom director of the Division of Diversity, Equity & Educational Achievement (DDEEA).

Dr. Charleston provides overall leadership for the university’s efforts to create a diverse, equitable and inclusive learning and working environment for all students, faculty, staff, alumni and others who work with the university. Along with the staff of the DDEEA, he partners with leadership in the university’s schools, colleges and divisions, as well as shared governance groups, to create policies that promote equity and social justice while fostering a sense of belonging for all members of the UW community. Dr. Charleston oversees the administration of scholarship and service programs designed to increase diversity and foster equity and inclusion for students, faculty and staff at the university. A first-generation college graduate and Badger alumnus from Detroit, Dr. Charleston earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from the UW–Madison School of Education in 2007 and 2010.

John Karl Scholz, Ph.D., began serving as UW–Madison provost in August 2019 after six years as the dean of the College of Letters & Science. He is also the Nellie June Gray Professor of Economic Policy in the Department of Economics, which he joined in 1988.

Provost Scholz is an internationally respected economist whose work on household saving, low-wage labor markets, financial barriers to higher education, and bankruptcy has appeared in leading economics journals. From 1997-98, he was the deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis at the U.S. Treasury Department, and from 1990-91 he was a senior staff economist at the Council of Economic Advisors. He directed the Institute for Research on Poverty at UW–Madison from 2000-04.