Daily Archives: April 4, 2018

We did it! By Kathleen Asay

Our 100^th Anniversary Research and Projects Grant is complete! What had seemed nearly impossible in 2012 came about two years early. Now when we celebrate our anniversary in 2020, we may even have our first grant recipient(s) to celebrate with us. We can thank Marty McKnew for the idea of the grant as a way honor our great age. She and Donna Holmes, co-funds directors at the time, convinced a nervous board to go along. Papers were filed in November 2012, and the grant was established with $5,000 from branch reserves.

The rest of the $75,000 needed came through a campaign by Marty and Donna to educate the membership about funds. They also called upon their contacts in other branches, which led to at least $23,000 in donations from those branches. Many thanks to them all! Nancy Lawrence and Ruth Burgess took up the cause in 2015 and approached Sacramento Branch past presidents, asking them to lead the branch by pledging what they could as an annual donation for five years to make the 2020 completion goal. In the end, branch members rose generously to the call, and it only took three more years.

Can we do it again?

Now that the Anniversary Grant is complete, what’s next? We have one more unfinished fund, and that’s the Alicia Hetman R&P Grant. Can we complete two in one year?

For those who don’t know her, Alicia (my co-Funds Director) was AAUW-CA president 2012-14, and it is for this that she was awarded the R&P grant. She has an extensive and significant background in AAUW, from branch positions to state and national boards. Among other branch responsibilities, Alicia was twice president of the Marysville-Yuba City branch. She served AAUW-CA for 26 years, and served as public policy director and Educational Foundation VP before going on to be president. She also served many years at the national level as a member of various committees, as well as the Educational Foundation Board of Directors before it was melded into the national board, where Alicia was vice chair. Many of you know she was a candidate for President of AAUW last year. Health issues caused her to cut back her campaign and she failed to be elected.

Outside of AAUW, Alicia taught elementary school with specialist credentials in handicapped learning and training in gender equity, which was helpful for AAUW-CA’s programs, as well. Eventually, her work for AAUW-CA led to a job with the California Department of Education to implement the provisions of a bill on gender equity in education sponsored by AAUW. Since she joined in 1975, Alicia has contributed to AAUW with mind and heart. You’ll have a chance to support her grant when you renew your dues.

Speech Trek Celebrates A Wonderful Contest and 2018 Winner by Liz Jordan

On Saturday, Feb. 17, the Speech Trek Committee and many wonderful volunteers, family and friends of the speakers gathered at Cosumnes River College and listened to eight high school students from the Elk Grove Unified School District speak to the topic: How can we stand up to sexism? What can individuals and organizations such as AAUW do to break down stereotypes and biases in school, at work, in the military, and in our communities?

Dr. Virginia Kidd, Communications Professor Emeritus California State University, Sacramento; Kasmira Kit, a former Marine and creative entrepreneur; and Danielle Metzinger, a Learning and Development Specialist for CalSTRS, judged this year’s contest. AAUW member Kathleen Deaver served as timekeeper for the contest, and Morgan Glover, Past President of CSUS AAUW and current Tech Trek Co-Director, video-recorded all of the student speeches. The Speech Trek Committee thanks Linda Patterson, Gloria Yost, Linda Sparks, Cherril Peabody, Barbara Sparks, Donna Holmes, and Vickie Nicholson for their help.

The winner of the 2018 Contest was Grace Tan from Laguna Creek High School, who took home the $500 prize. The video recording of Grace Tan’s speech has been uploaded to YouTube, AAUW CA Speech Trek Channel. AAUW Sacramento pays a $25 entry fee to submit Grace Tan’s winning speech to the State Semi-finals. In the picture above, the winners are, left to right:

Grace Tan–first place $500–Sophomore, Laguna Creek HS
Kathy Le–second place $250–Junior, Pleasant Grove HS
Simran Thandi–third place $100–Junior, Sheldon HS
Harleen Kaur–honorable mention $50–Junior, Sheldon HS

Last year 15 branches from around California submitted entries. The judges for the semi-final round view the videos of the branch entries and return their judging forms back to Marlene Cain, Speech Trek Coordinator for AAUW CA. Five of the top speeches are selected; the 4^th and 5^th Place winners are named and awarded $250 and $100 respectively. The top three speakers are invited to compete at the State Convention or Bi-Annual Meeting.

This year, the 2018 Finals will be held at Convention on Saturday, April 28 at the Marriott Irvine. The students and their chaperones will be feted at lunch when they will deliver their speeches to determine the 1^st Place with a $1500 award, 2^nd, with $1000 prize, and 3^rd Place winner wins $500. Those awards are made possible by the generous memorial donation by Mr. Gray Allen of Roseville for his late wife, Eleanor Stem Allen. Eleanor Allen was an active member of Roseville/South Placer Branch of AAUW and a passionate supporter of the Speech Trek Program.

This year students from six of the district’s nine secondary campuses competed. Kathy Le from Pleasant Grove High won 2^nd place and a $250 award. Simran Thandi, Sheldon High School, won 3^rd Place and a $100 award. Harleen Kaur from Sheldon High School won Honorable Mention with a $50 award.

The Speech Trek contest for 2019 will be planned for the third Saturday in February. The Speech Trek Committee provides speech contest workshops at all nine of the high schools in EGUSD.

The Committee is always looking for interested members who want to work with high school students. This mission-based program provides an opportunity to grades 9-12 girls and boys to practice an important life skill: to speak publicly about one’s research and opinions on topics of gender equality.

For more information please contact:

Shari Beck, 916-451-5143, gsbeck@surewest.net
Ann Arneill, 916-668-7371, ann@arneill.com
Liz Jordan, 916-354-9608, lizjord@msn.com
Ellynrose Sheehan, cell 415-615-2099, ers1719@gmail.com

How It All Began for AAUW in Sacramento by Nancy Lawrence

On Feb. 25, 1920, 41 women met to form the Sacramento Branch of the Association of Collegiate Alumni (to become AAUW in 1921) after two newcomers to Sacramento brought the idea of college graduate women uniting to support education in the local area. The majority of the women were graduates of Stanford or the University of California; smaller numbers were from Mills, Vassar, Radcliffe, College of the Pacific, etc. Many of the original members were high school teachers such as Belle Cooledge, Sacramento’s first woman mayor.

The original “sections” or interest groups the branch offered were drama, legislation and education. The decade saw the addition of a modern novel section, new discoveries in food, and international studies. Branch members joined in coalitions with other civic organizations to promote better education, health and housing. The branch fully supported the effort to create a junior college here in 1921 and opposed tariffs on books and scientific instruments.

One issue the new branch advocated for in the 1920s was to increase teachers’ annual retirement income from $500 to $750. Dues for the branch increased over the decade from $1 to $2. At the same time, the branch raised $3,000 to create a loan fund for women going to college. One of the problems, as you might imagine, was recovering the loans. In later years that program became the scholarship program that we continue today.

Branch meetings through the decade always hosted speakers (most of them men) on serious topics that sound familiar today: Do Colleges Educate?, The School as the Burden Bearer, Post-war Resettlement of Refugees, Tariffs. Somewhat quaintly today, the meetings always included a musical performance by members. One meeting, perhaps before Big Game, had members singing the Cal and Stanford fight songs!

Women had gotten the vote in California in 1911, nine years before the 19^th amendment was passed in the year of our founding. Yet in 1925, the branch voted against supporting a version of the Equal Rights Amendment by a 19-18 vote. Perhaps we should explore what that version of the ERA actually called for.

A glimpse of our founding decade indicates that many things don’t change, but community activism has been part of Sacramento Branch’s mission since our founding.