A MESSAGE FROM CAROL

Dear Toledo Branch Members,

Recent AAUW Updates reported a request by the President for $80 million for teacher training in the 2013 budget to reach the goal of training 1 million graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math fields over the next decade.  Young Americans need to be trained in science and math fields in order to foster innovation, create jobs and keep the U.S. globally competitive.  AAUW supports promoting and strengthening science, technology, engineering and math education (STEM), especially for girls and other underrepresented populations.   For years Toledo Branch has been active in efforts to promote interest in STEM careers by giving scholarship monies to girls attending Lourdes Life Lab summer camp and AAUW/Ohio’s Be Wise Camp each summer.  This year we will establish a STEM College Scholarship to be given to young women.  The scholarship will honor  Marge Lee, past branch and AAUW/Ohio President.  Details on how you can contribute to this new scholarship will be included in the dues statement this spring.

Other items of interest for AAUW members include:

  • AAUW celebrated the 19 year of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).  In its 19 years of existence, workers have used FMLA for certain family and medical purposes more than 100 million times.
  • Community Colleges remain essential to nearly half of the minority undergraduate students and 40 per cent of students living in poverty who use community colleges as a gateway to higher education.
  • An AAUW-Sponsored Newseum Exhibit opened in February in Wash. DC.  The exhibit, “Every Four Years:  Presidential Campaigns and the Press,” explores how media coverage shapes presidential campaigns and how that influence has evolved from the campaign of William McKinley (1896) to Barack Obama’s campaign (2008).
  • AAUW’s active Lobby Corps succeeded in obtaining five additional cosponsors for the bipartisan Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2011.
  • The first female four-star Air Force general was named recently– Lt. Gen. Janet Wolfenbarger.

Carol Leupp, President Toledo Branch