By Sheila Ramerman
Not to be daunted by COVID-19, AAUW Oregon held its April 18-20th Annual State Meeting and Awards Ceremony. Following are some highlights.
State Meeting News
Attendance statistics: This is the FIRST year ALL 23 Oregon AAUW branches were represented at the State Meeting. A total of 147 members registered to attend, 123 attended, and 101 were delegates. Eugene-Lane Branch’s delegates were Jean Simutis and Cindy Parker; also attending were Gail Goshert and Elena Rae (in her capacities as Online Branch President and Central District Director as well as branch member).
Keynote Speaker Jessica Vega Pedersen: Currently a Multnomah County Commissioner, Pedersen also spent several years as a member of the Oregon House of Representatives. After giving an overview of her political career and her experience working with (and appreciation of) Oregon AAUW, she talked about the Universal Pre-School initiative that won with a 64% “yes” vote in Multnomah County last November. The free, full-day, year-round program for 3- and 4- year-olds will be funded by a tax on high-earner households in the country, and is one of the most progressive in the nation according to this piece in The New York Times. Teachers will be paid on par with what public school kindergarten teachers make, which is more than what a ‘day care’ or preschool teacher currently makes.
Business: AAUW Oregon officers introduced the slate of State officers for 2021-2023 and the Nominating Committee for 2021-2022; there were no nominations from the floor and both slates were elected with no opposing votes. The 2022 Annual Meeting will be April 8 – 10, in Ashland.
AAUW Oregon Summer Skills Camp: Nancy Brown and team are planning another Summer Skills Camp, and she’s looking for input on a logo for T-shirts to sell as a fund raiser; last year’s T-shirts were great. Go to facebook.com/groups/AAUWofOregon to see the designs and to vote for your favorite.
COVID Planning: Pat Lehman and Sue Klumph passed along advice from AAUW President Kim Churches and the National Board to follow guides from our state governor and local health authorities about pandemic precautions. They, and AAUW of Oregon leadership, strongly advise us to continue virtual meetings until Gov. Brown changes her advice for Oregon.
Award Celebrations
Alexandra Vargas Quinones, a graduate student at PSU in natural resources management and an AAUW International Fellow, started off the program. She described how she found out about the AAUW fellowship (her graduate advisor had a list of scholarships and fellowships!) and how her professional journey brought her to Portland and PSU. We were pleasantly surprised to hear that there are more women students in her program than men, and that seems to be Alexandra’s experience throughout her career.
Eugene-Lane Branch’s Named Gift Honorees are Carol Hildebrand, in recognition of her taking on the Program VP position for a year and doing such a great job under pandemic conditions, and Marian Spath, in recognition of all the support she’s given AAUW over the years, and especially for her publishing the Reader Board for the last several years. Thank you both!
Eugene-Lane branch made the Top 10 list for Funds Contributions. We squeaked in right at #10, but we made the list! Congrats and thank you to each of you who contributed this year.
Finally, we have 6 members (Ardith Hinman, Marian Spath, Ellen Otani, Carol Hildebrand, Cindy Parker, Margot Zallen) who are Century Club donors (having donated $100 – $249); and one member of the Legacy Circle, Peggy Shippen, who has included AAUW in her estate plans.
The State Named Gift Honorees for 2021 are Trish Garner for her work on Public Policy; Nancy Brown for her Tech savvy and support; and Pat Squire/ State Program VP. Collectively, all 3 were also honored for the “Together on the Path to Anti-Racism” series that they planned, coordinated and presented this past year.