May Program

Monday, May 13, 2024
7 PM on Zoom

Introducing our High School Scholarship Recipients

Our May Branch Meeting will be our last on Zoom for the year, and it is our annual celebration of our High School Scholarship winners, of which there are ten, and our second ever Cal Poly Scholarship recipient, but the first to be awarded under the Cal Poly AAUW SLO Branch Lynn S. Janeway Memorial Scholarship. We will be able to meet these talented scholarship winners and learn of their future plans and how our scholarship helps them in attaining their goals. There will be time to ask these recipients questions. So put Monday, May 13th, at 7 pm on your calendar. 

Our June Branch meeting will be in-person. It is scheduled for Saturday, June 8th, at 10 am, the location TBA. It will include the Election and Installation of the Board and a review of the past year. Our Named Gift Honoree will also be announced at this time. An Evite will go out prior so you can rsvp, and we can get an idea of how many are planning to attend. We have two key openings on the Board. These are VP of Programs and VP of Membership. Other key positions will be filled with continuing officers. If interested, please contact our President, Debra Valencia-Laver.

Our April Branch Zoom Meeting with presenter Don Gaede was very informative. Though there was a small number of attendees, the questions asked following his presentation allowed him to further discuss the climate issues he brought up and the various ways we can help protect our environment. After the meeting our Communications Chair, Shelly Johnson, emailed to all members the handout he provided. By reading it, you will understand the issues he discussed during his presentation.

See you on zoom on May 13th.

Esther Pudlo
VP of Programs

President's Message

Happy Mother's Day!

This is a shout out to the mothering and caregiving that so many of us do, often unnoticed and uncompensated. Motherhood — and caregiving more generally — are also factors in pay equity. The motherhood penalty affects women across professions, across the pay scale, and into retirement, where "women have only 70% of the overall retirement income that men have" (AAUW). As presented to Cal Poly students on our commemoration of Equal Pay Day, AAUW has a number of educational and other resources about workplace and economic equity and the active steps AAUW is taking to address these issues. If you haven't looked at the AAUW website recently, I encourage you to do so!

During this month of May, it is also relevant to remember that Mother's Day had its roots in what became known as the Mother's Day Proclamation of 1870, which was a fervent call to peace by writer, suffragist, abolitionist, and activist Julia Ward Howe. Read more about her proclamation and life HERE.

May is also Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month. This past April, I spent a few days on the Big Island of Hawai'i and had the opportunity to visit Hulihee Palace, the summer palace for the Hawaiian royalty. There I saw artifacts and pictures of various members of the royal families over the years, including Queen Lili'uokalani, the only woman and the last ruling monarch of Hawai'i. Her story is inspiring — she did much to support and empower women — yet also heartbreaking, as hers is also the story of the struggle to restore and preserve Hawai'ian sovereignty. You can read more about her story HERE.

There's also a short film about her from the PBS Learning Media project Unladylike 2020, which presents stories of "26 little-known Progressive Era women, diverse in profession, race, ethnicity, geographical and class backgrounds, sexual orientation and gender expression, who broke barriers in then-male-dominated fields such as science, business, journalism, exploration, and the arts." Check it out!

Finally, this May we commemorate and celebrate the life of our very own Lynn Janeway. Her Celebration of Life will take place on Saturday, May 25, at 10 am at the South Bay Community Center in Los Osos. For 50-plus years, AAUW played a special and significant role in Lynn's life. She and her husband, George, made that devotion into a lasting gift with their establishment of the endowment supporting our branch scholarship, now enshrined as the AAUW SLO Branch Lynn S. Janeway Memorial Scholarship. You can read more about, Berenice Sanchez Hernandez, the inaugural recipient of the scholarship in this newsletter and know that Lynn's legacy and commitment to equity and education for women and girls will thrive. And you can hear Berenice and our SLOHS scholarship winners at our May Branch Meeting via Zoom on Monday, May 13 at 7 pm. I hope to see you there!

Debra Valencia-Laver
President

“Never cease to act because you fear you may fail. The true secret is to know your own worth. It will carry you through many dangers.”

– Queen Lili'uokalani, First Sovereign Queen and Last Monarch of Hawai'i (1838-1917)

Lynn Janeway's Celebration of Life

We are all invited to a Celebration of Life for Lynn Janeway, which will be held on Saturday, May 25th at 10 a.m. at the South Bay Community Center in Los Osos. Rides can be requested by members of other members. Please don't hesitate to reach out!

In lieu of flowers, please feel free to donate to the Cal Poly AAUW SLO Branch Lynn S. Janeway Memorial Scholarship fund. Lynn’s passion was protecting the rights and advancing the education of women and girls.

To donate, click HERE.

Inaugural AAUW SLO Branch Lynn S. Janeway Memorial Scholarship Awardee: Berenice Sanchez Hernandez

On Friday, May 10, I had the pleasure to speak with Berenice Sanchez Hernandez, the inaugural recipient of the AAUW SLO Branch Lynn S. Janeway Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship was

designed to benefit a transfer student from Allan Hancock or Cuesta Community College who is continuing their education at Cal Poly and who also demonstrates value for the goals and mission of AAUW. In her application, Berenice, who is also a member of Cal Poly's Women in Business Club, wrote:

As a woman, I believe advancing gender equality for women and girls is important. One area of research that interests me personally is economic empowerment for women. Being financially independent is important and provides a sense of autonomy over one's self. I would like to learn and perhaps even guide women and girls on how to achieve financial freedom.

After graduation it's also important to support programs and initiatives that support women. I can specifically support such organizations financially if able, but also by simply bringing awareness to it. I can spread information about the organization through word of mouth, or by a simple Instagram post. The importance is to let other women and girls know there are people out there willing to help. Two main organizations I keep track of are Equality Now and Association for Women’s Right in Development. Both organizations mainly focus on protecting women’s human rights and promoting gender equality.

 

You can see why she was selected! Lynn would be proud!

Berenice will be graduating from Cal Poly this spring with her bachelors in business administration and a concentration in human resources and management. She has been a very active student at Cal Poly since transferring from Allan Hancock College. Some clubs and organizations she’s connected with are the Latinx Club, EOP, and Cal Poly scholars.

 

Berenice is a first-generation student and the first from her family to graduate with a four-year college degree. She is the middle of three children. She has an older brother who is a flight attendant and a younger sister who is a dental assistant, and both are considering continuing on to get four-year degrees. She's worked her way through college and is currently working as a student assistant for Cal Poly Extended, Professional and Continuing Education. The scholarship award was used to help cover some of this year's expenses for tuition and school materials, for which she is very grateful.

Her goal in life is to help others reach their goals and also helping them see that pursuing higher education is a very realistic goal. She finds that from her own experience, women can often be discouraged in pursuing their higher education dreams to focus on family and taking care of others instead. In earning her degree, she knows that she can still be connected with family and can help out others, and that achieving her own goals is actually helping her do that, though in a different way.

After she graduates, Berenice is planning to do a little traveling before getting a job. This summer, she plans to do a road trip and also visit Mexico where a lot of her extended family still resides. She has a friend who will be starting a job in Puerto Rico, so that is another destination on her travel list. As far as employment after graduation, Berenice hopes to stay on the Central Coast, especially around Santa Maria. In particular, she will be looking into working for the organization called Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley, which seeks to empower youth by working to reduce violence and prevent substance abuse. In her spare time she enjoys watching movies and reading, and she’s just taken up roller skating again, though she is still in the very initial part of that activity.

Some classes that she enjoyed taking at Cal Poly have been classes in change management and people analytics—this last class has brought her full circle by tying together many aspects of her training in statistics, in marketing and business, and in looking at and managing change. Her advice for students  who are interested in college or who are new to college is to take advantage of the resources and clubs available to you; to find your community -- others who are going through similar things; and to believe in yourself and know you belong, even when there's a sense of imposter syndrome. Remember, you belong here! You got accepted for a reason!

Well said, Berenice! We're so happy to be supporting you in achieving your goals and dreams and wish you all the best for your future!

Debra Valencia-Laver

Tech Trek News

Let me introduce you to the eight young women who will be attending Tech Trek this summer, sponsored by the AAUW San Luis Obispo branch. Remember that the camp at UCSB is not happening this summer, so were offered spaces in camps at Fresno State or Carson Camp at Monterey Bay. I have just learned that the Carson Camp will be held at UC Santa Cruz instead. 

We are planning to send three girls to Fresno, letting Cambria use two of our spaces so they could send girls from the Santa Lucia Middle School, and send five girls to Carson Camp. The three girls attending Fresno are Carolyn Juretic, Pearl Baker-Ballantyne and Bidu Ashley. The five girls attending Carson are Annie Rawlings, Linn Unemar, Sirena Pilolla and twins Phoebe and Maggie Cross. I know you will enjoy hearing from these girls in September, as they are all well rounded girls as well as being interested in math or science. Because of generous donations this year, each girl is fully sponsored by an individual donor and we have a good start on next year's fundraising for Tech Trek.

Susan Updegrove
Tech Trek Chair

Cuesta Re-entry Scholarship Committee Update

Members of the AAUW Cuesta re-entry scholarship committee led by Diana Kaiser and including Bette Kulp, Diane Howard and Sandy Amborn recently selected five recipients from a field of 11 candidates for $2000 scholarships to Cuesta College students. The award winners represented a variety of majors including nursing, finance and social work. Each has a compelling life story. 

The Scholarship Selection Committee went into action this spring reviewing the applications for next fall’s re-entry awards at Cuesta. Having more applications to read and evaluate this time, we narrowed the field to seven whom we interviewed by Zoom over a two-day period. Five candidates emerged at the top. In alphabetical order they are:

April Arnold, 40, was accepted into the nursing program after several attempts. She has her AA degree and is working toward her AS in nursing. Eventually she wants to have her BSN. She has two children, has an EMT license and has worked in the Sierra Vista Hospital emergency room since 2007. April lives in Los Osos.

Amanda Davison, 38, is from Paso Robles. A single mom, she has completed 51 units at Cuesta since 2008 and is working toward a degree in finance. Amanda previously worked as a missionary in England for 5 years, where she assumed leadership roles and handled the bookkeeping for the mission. While there, she helped start-up shops establish their own accounting systems. She hopes to continue volunteer work at the food bank. 

Tanner Fry, 32, resides in Cambria, is single, and is working toward an RN, an associate degree in nursing, and a BSN from Ohio University. This concurrent arrangement came about when Tanner suffered major injuries while rock climbing in 2023, causing him to withdraw from Cuesta and his employment. He utilized his down time at home by enrolling in Ohio U’s on-line classes. He has an AS in allied health from Columbia College and has worked locally as an in-home caregiver. He was Cuesta’s first student tutor in nursing, helping first semester students cope with the program’s rigorous challenges.

Erika Gutierrez, 27, lives in SLO, a single mom to her 4-year old daughter, Josephine. She is receiving government assistance with housing. Erika intends to pursue a career in social work, perhaps as a drug and alcohol counselor with the county. She had a temporary job working with United Way in the Farm and Food Worker Relief Program. Erika is the first of her family to graduate from high school and attempt college.

Jenna Hufford, 39, is from Atascadero. She has a 4-year old daughter with serious asthma problems, which affects her ability to work long hours. A Cal Poly grad with a BS in psychology, she had intended to go into gerontology but was financially unable to continue. She is returning to Cuesta, having been accepted into the RN program. Caring for a patient with Parkinson’s reinforced her desire to help the elderly. “Jenna leads by example and has demonstrated that she is more than qualified and capable of persevering with life's challenges.” one of her references wrote.

Membership Update

We don't have any new members this month, but I wanted to mention that as I won't be able to continue as membership VP due to work and family commitments, I hope someone will consider helping with this next year. The majority of the work is done on-line and hopefully will become more streamlined as more members are able to process their own renewals, but outreach to new or potential members is also needed if this might be more of interest. 

In another entry in a series on lesser known women in science I wanted to briefly highlight Annie Jump Cannon. She was an astronomer born in 1863 and studied physics and astronomy at Wellesley and Radcliffe. She was hired as part of a group of women "computers" for the Harvard observatory and quickly became essential to developing new methods of cataloging stars and was eventually promoted to professor. Amazingly, she was also almost deaf most of her adult life and was very dependent on the "hearing aids" of the day. The American Astronomical Society continues to award a prize in her name.

Erin Egelkrout

Membership VP

SLO AAUW Tabling at Cal Poly

During the month of April, Patricia Ponce, one of our Cal Poly University Reps, and I were able to table at two events in Cal Poly's UU Plaza! At both events, information on free student memberships as a function of Cal Poly's University Partnership with AAUW was presented to a number of interested students!

The first event was a belated commemoration of Equal Pay Day. We were on campus on Wednesday, April 10, a week after Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Women’s Equal Pay Day (April 3) and the first full week of Cal Poly's Spring term. In addition to handing out Pay Day candy bars and raising awareness about issues of pay equity with students, staff, and faculty, we also reconnected with one of last year's SLOHS AAUW scholarship winners! We plan to be back in the Fall quarter to commemorate either — or both — Latina Equal Pay Day (October 3) and Native Women's Equal Pay Day (November 21).

On Thursday, April 25, we were back in the UU, this time taking part in Cal Poly SAFER's Take Back the Night event as part of Sexual Assault Action Month. We passed out whistles and "End Campus Sexual Assault" stickers. Students learned about AAUW's advocacy work with the US Congress and California state legislatures to protect reproductive rights, end sexual assault, and reduce the personal costs of emergency room care when seeking treatment after an assault.

While progress has been made on the issues of gender pay equity and in reducing sexual violence, it is important to galvanize the support of the next generation to continue this important work! Please consider joining us next year!

Debra Valencia-Laver

Cal Poly students pose with Patricia and Debra as they commemorate Equal Pay Day 2024

Patricia and Debra participate in Cal Poly SAFER's Take Back the Night event.

PUBLIC POLICY UPDATE: TITLE IX NEW RULES AND LOBBY DAYS RECAP

Amy Hom and Melissa Maceyko, AAUW CA Directors, Public Policy Committee Co-chairs, publicpolicy@aauw-ca.org

HOT OFF THE PRESSES! On Friday, April 19, 2024, the Biden Administration released long-awaited guidance on the application and administration of Title IX.

The rule changes:

(1) rework Trump Administration guidance on the handling of campus sexual assault, providing expanded protections for survivors; and

(2) expand Title IX protections against sex/gender-based harassment and discrimination to protect members of the LGBTQ+ community. Expansion of rights to the LGBTQ+ community via Title IX aligns this federal law with current interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of sex/gender. AAUW National serves in a gender equity coalition supporting these changes.

This year’s AAUW California Lobby Days event, in which we collectively advocated for state-level Title IX protections as part of our legislative agenda, was held on April 2nd and 3rd. It was an exciting and action-packed affair; 140 women on 43 teams from 63 AAUW California branches met with 39 Assembly offices and 27 Senate offices. Eleven meetings took place in person in Sacramento, 55 meetings took place via Zoom, and the majority took place without a hitch.

While most meetings were conducted with legislative staff, we were able to hold eight meetings with the members themselves - five Assemblymembers and three Senators. We were not able to get a meeting for Zoom Team 7 with Assemblymember Hart, but they did even better when one of their members, Judy Frost from the Santa Maria Branch, joined Assemblymember Hart on a hike and lobbied him on the hiking trail.

We were happy to learn that our organization was known to many of the legislative staff and legislators with whom our members met. Some staff had looked up our website prior to the meeting and were impressed with programs such as Tech Trek and Gov Trek. Most were supportive of advancing women’s equity.

The reception of our “Top 3” bills - AB 2843, AB 2326, and AB 2099 – was generally favorable. You can find more information on these and all the bills we are supporting HERE.

If you’ve signed up for action alerts, thank you! You should get ready for a busy summer and fall. Thankfully, a lot of our priority legislation is moving along smoothly, so we have not yet reached out to you to act. However, we do invite you to test out one arm of our alert system: Resistbot. Click HERE and “sign” the petition in support of SB 554. When you “sign,” Resistbot will prompt you, through your preferred text message system, to send a letter with the petition text to your CA State Senator. Be sure to check it out!

Sign up for Action Alerts HERE.

Brown Bag 'N' Books Interest Group

We meet the 2nd Tuesday of the months September through May at 12:30 PM until 2:00 PM. On Tuesday, May 14, 2024 we will meet in the Laguna Lake Mobile Estates’ Library. Thank you so very much, Pat, for reserving it for us. Mary Jefferson will present The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher.

At our May meeting we will also discuss whether this year to meet in August, whether to skip September, and when and how to decide which books to read next year.

If you would like to join us at any of our BBNB meetings, please email me, so I can send you further particulars and so we will know to expect you.

~Miki~

Decorations from last month's meeting

Dine Out

Our April Dine Out Night was held at Milestone Tavern on a warm night in SLO. We were able to take advantage of this and sat outside.  The service and food was outstanding.  We all enjoyed our entree and the lively conversation. The new seafood restaurant, Lure, on the corner of Santa Rosa and Monterey, is our May restaurant. Many of you have said to me that you wanted to try it. Here's your chance. Our Dine Out Date is Wednesday, May 15th, at 6 pm. Do let me know by Monday, May 13th if you plan to come. At that time, I will make the reservation and find out if they will give separate checks. Hopefully, they will. If you need a ride, one will be provided. Just let me know when you make your reservation.

Last month at Milestone

 

Watercolor Painting

Saturday, May 18th is watercolor painting from 2:00-4:30pm at Sherill's home. May 12 is Mother’s Day so we will paint a dedication to Mothers everywhere! Healthy nibbles are served. Afterwards we walk through the vegetable garden to collect a few goodies for each person.

June is for graduations, so we will end on a freewheeling note! Watercolor will be held Saturday, June 15th, 2:00-4:30 pm. Light nibbles served. June will be the last session this year and the class will end. Thanks to each and every one of you who splashed along with us!

Sherill & Robert

May Birthdays

Maureen Dresp May 6th

Allison Patrick May 21st

Mila Vujovich LaBarre May 27th