Dr. LaVar Charleston had a crush on Dr. Sherri Charleston from the moment he met her in ninth grade.
Dr. LaVar Charleston is the deputy vice chancellor for diversity & inclusion, vice provost and chief diversity officer at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
While the two were friendly, they had opposite interests at the time. He was the captain of the football team, and she was captain of the debate team. Their love story didn’t come to fruition until eight years after graduation, when they reunited at a mutual friend’s event.
“Sometimes it still surprises me when I think about the fact that we’re actually together,” said LaVar Charleston. “Since we reconnected at that event almost 19 years ago, we’ve been pretty much inseparable.”
At the beginning, their academic journeys followed different trajectories. LaVar Charleston studied public relations, marketing, educational leadership and policy analysis. Sherri Charleston studied the intersection of U.S. history, gender and race with the law. But before long, their expertise, personal experiences, and mutual passion for justice saw them giving speeches and offering consultations to businesses and institutions about the importance of diversity and how to build an inclusive environment.
Eventually, both became Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) leaders. LaVar Charleston is currently the deputy vice chancellor for diversity & inclusion, vice provost and chief diversity officer at the University of Wisconsin – Madison (UW – Madison), and Sherri Charleston is the first chief diversity and inclusion officer at Harvard University.
Together, the two work to make organizational, leadership, and cultural changes that transform higher education into a welcoming space for marginalized populations. They collaborate on projects that improve access to graduate school for under-resourced students and students of color. The couple counts on each other for ideas, support, understanding, and perspective as they do the difficult, often emotionally taxing work of DEI professionals.
