June 5, 2002      Willow Glen, California  Since 1992



Cover Story

(Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer) Women's Work - Making Voices Heard AAUW's San Jose branch has been headquarted in Willow Glen since 1968 AAUW San Jose branch members, clockwise from top, Edie Kerr, Pat Daoud, Lois Gil and President Gloria Leonard. The AAUW house at 1165 Minnesota Ave. was purchased more than 30 years ago (By Susan Wiedmann ) The unassuming two-story house next to the Willow Glen Library is actually a center for activism. It is the headquarters of the 400-member San Jose branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW), a national organization that continues to advocate for higher-education opportunities for women and equality for girls and women of all ages. During the past several decades in particular, the AAUW has greatly influenced legislators and the public on issues that include women's education, sex discrimination, reproductive choice, civil rights, family medical leave, affirmative action, Title IX, welfare reform, pay equity and health care. It has evolved to such an extent that its members who serve the community in and around Willow Glen are now even able to regularly arrange for local girls to take part in hands-on scientific and high-tech programs exclusively for girls. (Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer) Active Member: Lois Gil, AAUW San Jose branch historian, puts away books donated by members to help raise money for the branch's various projects. "The history of the AAUW has paralleled the women's movement," says Gloria Leonard, outgoing president of the 93-year-old branch. "As society and women's roles changed, so did the AAUW." Ironically, more women going to work over the past few decades has meant that the only women available to do AAUW community work during the day are either retired women or busy stay-at-home mothers. From its beginnings, helping the community has also been an additional focus of the branch, and the community's needs have grown larger in recent years. An example is Project Homeless, which began in the Minnesota Avenue branch in the mid-1980s and currently consists of a 10- to 15-member committee of busy AAUW members. "We are thinking of changing the name because we are actually dealing with more issues in the community than homelessness," says Barbara Bettencourt, head of the Project Homeless committee and a former president of the branch. "We look at affordable housing and at what various organizations like Sacred Heart Community Center are doing and how we can plug into that and be helpful." The Project Homeless group delivers necessities to two shelters each month, donating everything from diapers to cleaning supplies for individuals in transitional housing. AAUW members also participate in bingo night for homeless people who have mental illness and who stay at a Julian Street shelter, and the chapter distributes Christmas baskets to needy teens. The closets in the Willow Glen headquarters are continually filled with items for the project. (Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer) Tag Along: Name tags await AAUW San Jose branch members when they come to their meeting place on Minnesota Avenue. Association origins The national AAUW was officially formed in 1921, a year after women finally received the right to vote in the United States. The group's origins go back to 1881 - and Boston, when 17 female college alumnae met to plan an organization that would help more women attend college and help find work for those who graduated. In 1882, the Association of Collegiate Alumnae (ACA) was founded with 65 members from eight colleges and universities. By 1885, the organization's first research study concluded from the responses of its 705 members that a college education did not negatively affect a woman's health or reproductive organs, contrary to the popular opinion of the time. The original San Jose branch was formed in 1909 as part of the ACA, before becoming part of the AAUW in 1921. Its house at 1165 Minnesota Ave. was purchased in 1968 through generous donations to its building fund, totally separate from any money raised for AAUW causes. "We only raise money officially in the branch for two programs," Leonard says. "One is our Educational Foundation, which is international in scope, and the other is the Legal Advocacy Fund. Every branch raises money for those." For tax purposes, the AAUW, the Educational Foundation and the Legal Advocacy Fund (LAF) have been divided into three separate corporations while remaining part of the AAUW. Leonard points out that the Educational Foundation gives the most grants of any organization to women who are college graduates and who seek to advance themselves in their careers or in professions where few women are employed. It also provides funds for research and reports on problems that girls and young women still face in schools. "If you hear on TV about a finding of the AAUW concerning, for example, sexual harassment of girls in school, and they talk about a study, the Educational Foundation is the arm that did the study," Leonard says. The LAF is a relatively new part of the AAUW. A recent example of its work involved funding a woman's lawsuit against Stanford University for alleged sexual harassment by a faculty member. Although the woman was promised she would get support from the school's administration, she experienced retaliation for filing her complaint. With the help of the LAF, her case was settled out of court. Community action projects Leonard has been an AAUW member for about six years. As president, her administrative responsibilities include making certain that the branch's local programs reflect the values, mission and goals of the AAUW. "Our membership is not a young membership," Leonard says. "That is considered the big challenge and focus of membership recruitment across the country these days, and not just with AAUW. This year we've recruited 52 new members and we've noted that 20 of them are working women in the age category of 40 to 60. Forty is considered young to us." (Photograph courtesy of the AAUW) Trekkies: This group of seventh-graders won scholarships to participate in the American Association of University Women's Tech Trek camp, an annual statewide math/science summer program at Stanford University this July. The students are standing outside the AAUW's Willow Glen house, where the San Jose branch has its meetings. Regardless of their ages, the local AAUW members enthusiastically do their part to carry out the national association's vision of education and equity for all women and girls. Some of the most successful programs involving girls take place in Willow Glen. Tech Excellence is a program for middle school girls run by an AAUW committee of about 12 members, many of whom are retired teachers. Each month they bring a hands-on science or technology project to John Muir Middle School in Willow Glen for girls who have been recommended by their teachers. They also arrange for a speaker, usually a woman, to present the girls with a talk about her career in that field of science or high tech. Two weeks later, the girls go on a bus trip to explore real-life applications of the project. Recent projects focused on aeronautics and veterinary careers. Local grants pay for Tech Excellence and for Tech Trek, an annual statewide math/science summer camp for girls between the seventh and eight grades. Essay winners from the San Jose area stay at Stanford for one week to take part in math/science experiments and to meet women who are successful in those male-dominated careers. "Our branch provided four scholarships this year worth about $600 each for the girls to go," Leonard says. "They had to write an essay on 'Why I think Science is Cool.' " Because of the Tech Excellence program and the fact that many members have science degrees, AAUW members in Willow Glen are in demand as judges at science fairs in local schools. Mary McCarthy, the founder of Tech Excellence and one of the first women engineers at Lockheed Martin, is now nearly 80, Leonard says, but McCarthy still wants to further expand science and technology programs for girls in schools. A local AAUW college scholarship committee, chaired by longtime AAUW member Edie Kerr, holds a popular writing contest every year at Willow Glen High School. Girls from all over the San Jose area come to the school to write an essay on a given subject that reflects a value of the AAUW. This year three girls each won a $1,200 scholarship. Making their voices heard Kerr has been a continuous AAUW member for about 50 years and was president of the San Jose branch when it celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1959. When she moved away to Shasta County for 17 years, she missed the group so much that she chartered a branch for her new neighbors. It continues to thrive today. "I just went around in the woods and pulled all these people out," Kerr says with a straight face. The AAUW is open to all graduates with a baccalaureate or higher degree, no matter where they live. It has more than 150,000 national members in nearly 1,700 branches. At the national level, the AAUW has lobbyists in Washington, D.C., while each state also has an AAUW lobbyist. In California the lobbyist works in Sacramento, where she receives help, as needed, from AAUW public policy committee representatives from branches throughout the state on matters pertaining to important legislative bills. Kerr is the outgoing co-chair of the San Jose AAUW Public Policy Committee. Although the AAUW is nonpartisan and does not recommend voting for or against a candidate, members receive report cards showing how elected officials voted on certain issues, including child care, domestic violence, education and reproductive rights. The AAUW and individual states provide the AAUW branches with public policy program guidelines, which each branch then adopts prior to creating its own programs. Care has to be taken so that nothing is inadvertently done in opposition to the guidelines. The AAUW also has a firm use-of-name policy, by which an individual member can support or oppose anything, but she cannot use the AAUW name while doing so. Members of the branch on Minnesota Avenue want to raise awareness of today's community issues. "A lot of people in Willow Glen, for example, are not wealthy," Leonard points out. "Child care for working families and single moms is a major problem. We see legislation about standards for childcare, licensing and those kinds of issues, and there are some bills coming through the state about that. That's how we can help." General AAUW meetings are open to the public and held monthly at local churches and occasionally at San Jose City College. Last March, the successful "Woman to Woman: A Community Dialog" brought together women of different races, ages and cultures. "We invited women from parts of the community here in San Jose and Santa Clara County that are not represented in AAUW, much to our regret," Leonard says. "We asked them to be on a panel or in the audience and have a dialog about issues that we know are common concerns." Interest groups at the branch Leonard, Kerr and Bettencourt say they view public policy as being the most important element of the AAUW. But for others at the branch, interests vary widely, and many dues-paying individuals can't or don't want to join committees. "There is a focus on fellowship and friendship in terms of why people join AAUW as well," Leonard says. "I would say that everyone who joins probably agrees with its mission about education and equity for women and girls, but their motive for joining can be quite different." Some members belong to at least one of 25 interest groups that meet each month at the branch. The list includes four book clubs, foreign languages, art, arts and crafts, genealogy, bridge, gourmet cooking and travel. One interest group is more cerebral and is called "Great Decisions." It's facilitated through the educational, nonpartisan Foreign Policy Association (FPA), which is not a part of AAUW. Two meetings are held each month from February through May to discuss a total of eight issues related to U.S. foreign policy. This spring's Great Decisions topics included the roots of terrorism, Korean security issues, the Middle East peace process, Colombia and drug trafficking, India and South Asia, AIDS in Africa, Russia, and, most recently, energy and the environment. The local AAUW Great Decisions committee members read an FPA manual, do a bit of homework, and then take part in a lively, intelligent discussion about the topic. Other AAUW branches and many other organizations in the United States also participate in Great Decisions, and after each series, the participants fill in informational ballots for the FPA, which makes the results known to legislators and the public. Leonard reentered college after a long career as a legal secretary, receiving her bachelor's degree in humanities in 1992. "I retired and got my degree at the same time," Leonard says. She has treated her presidency like a regular job. "I know I'm going to spend some part of every day on AAUW matters," she says. Leonard took advantage of high tech herself when she ran the branch from Italy via email during a recent trip. After her term ends June 30, she will remain involved with the branch, initially helping the new co-presidents as they take on the challenges of another year of women's issues. The branch will hold a wine tasting on June 14 for new and prospective members. For further information, contact the AAUW, 1165 Minnesota Ave., San Jose, 95125, or call 408-294-2430.

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