Tag Archives: AAUW

Victoria Olajide’s 2021 NCCWSL Report: “Use Your Voice”

AAUW Eugene-Lane was proud to sponsor branch member and UO doctoral student Victoria Olajide, as she attended AAUW’s May 25-26, 2021 National Conference for College Women Student Leaders (NCCWSL)! Victoria is currently spending the summer in her native Nigeria, so she graciously created the following video report of her NCCWSL experiences.

Being inspired to “use her voice to effect change” was Victoria’s biggest take-away from the event, but her entire seven-minute video is worth checking out.

Alternatively, here is the transcript from her report (although the video version is more compelling):

Transcript:

Hello everyone, my name is Victoria Olajide. I’m a soon to be third year PhD student at the University of Oregon, a PhD student of the anthropology department. I was sponsored by the AAUW Eugene Chapter to attend the 2021 NCCWSL Conference, the virtual conference that held on the 25th and 26th of May, 2021. And I should be giving this report in person.

Unfortunately, I’m in Nigeria right now, and Nigeria is nine hours ahead of the US, so I decided to make a video, and the network situation is quite unpredictable right here, so I decided to send in a video. I hope that is acceptable by everyone.

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Oregon AAUW Town Hall w/Julia Brown, March 21, 2021

By Sheila Ramerman

Julia Brown, AAUW National Board Chair

On Sunday, March 21, AAUW Oregon co-presidents Pat Lehman and Sue Klumph hosted an online Town Hall, featuring AAUW National Board Chair Julia Brown. Brown gave an overview of the work the board is doing, presented work and discussion to date on the proposed bylaws change to remove the requirement to hold a degree, and responded to questions and comments from the group.

Over 50 members from across the State were in the meeting, and we heard a summary of the national online Town Hall to discuss the bylaws amendment. All of the feedback from the national town hall is posted on the AAUW website. In general, most members speaking up were in favor, and the prevailing comments were related to remaining mindful of AAUW’s mission (advancing equity for women and girls); that education, knowledge, and capabilities come from life experience as well as from formal studies. Julia Brown reminded us that many women of distinction – Eleanor Roosevelt, Maya Angelou, Lilly Ledbetter, Oprah Winfrey – did not go to college or did not finish college.

Julia herself wasn’t always a fan of removing the degree requirement, but from her involvement in a branch Tech Trek program, she saw girls, who wouldn’t otherwise have considered college, realize that it was possible. Some girls realized that college wasn’t always necessary; there were vocational paths that would get them to where they wanted to be.

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