Fairy Tales Wisdom by Joan Monk

Never get tired of doing little things for others. For sometimes, those little things occupy the biggest part of their heart.'” – Ida Azhari

Positive Affirmation

Today I am stronger than yesterday. I see the sunshine peering through the darkness.

An Act of KIindness

Go out of your way to make someone laugh today. Laughter feels so good and is a true gift!
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/0MXiU2yoGeY
Meir Kay spreads positivity and cheer by complimenting complete strangers through free style rap and beatboxing.

 

Join Us for 50/50 Day on April 26, 2018!www.letitripple.org
Joan S. Monk
Leadership Board Coordinator

Character Day & 50/50 Day

ftmaven@gmail.com
914-245-7704 (h)    914-486-1182 (c)

 

CELEBRATE the NYS WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE CENTENNIAL

CELEBRATE the NYS WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE CENTENNIAL
with WOMENSACTIVISM.NYC

Join WomensActivism.nyc at the NYC Department of Records and Information Services
BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center
Borough of Manhattan Community College Women’s Resource Center
and
The Women’s Salon and JoAnne Akalaitis

Monday, November 6, 2017
BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center
199 Chambers Street
6pm – 8pm

Honor the Women Who Won the Right to Vote in NYS in 1917
and People Fighting for Justice Today

100 YEARS! Stay Tuned…
A Centennial Anniversary Celebration of Women’s Suffrage in New York State
drama * poetry * stories * open mic
*suffragists’ recipes * sing-along * birthday cake
site-specific performance
100 YEARS! Stay Tuned… is an open performance.
You can come anytime after 6pm.
Tickets are not required but we would like to know you are coming, so please rsvp!

Empire State Virtual NY Branch Members at the AAUW NYS

AAUW NYS Summer Leadership Conference
Cazenovia College, Cazenovia, New York

 

 

AAUW NYS Summer Leadership Conference in Cazenovia College, Cazenovia, New York. The Empire State Virtual NY Branch (ESVB) members always actively participate in this Summer Leadership Conference but this year was very special to us because we celebrated our 5th Anniversary!

 

 

Our two newest members, Raegan Sealy, from
England and a recent graduate of the New School
and Ali Comerford, from Ireland and a recent graduate of the Manhattan School of Music entertained us, sang and played the guitar and inspired great moments of joy as we continue to live our AAUW mission to advance equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, philanthropy and research.

www.Sound Board.nyc

 

 

 

 

 

              Raegan Sealy                                                                                       Ali Comerford

Congrats to the ESVB newest members, Raegan Sealy and Ali Comerford for creating the Sound Board, https://www.soundboard.nyc/board.html , an innovative non-profit based in NYC that uses poetry, music and performance to educate young people as artists, self-advocates, and emerging professionals.

Through creative programming, training, performance opportunities and mentoring Raegan and Ali provide young people with the skills they need to overcome roadblocks to education, engage in constructive political discourse and foster inclusion in their communities.  They connect our demographic through relevant art forms that they identify with; Sound Board is committed to the social capacity of rap, hip hop, jazz and songwriting to fight stigmas that are too often attached to terms like ‘poetry’ or ‘music,’ or the very idea of creative dialogue and social change.

Their target demographic has a powerful vocality and perspective that they seek to amplify. Their services are geared for young people who come from low-income families, ethnic minorities, have had contact with social services or are otherwise disadvantaged, disenfranchised or disengaged. They create platforms from which their voices can be heard. They partner with communities that are historically and culturally rich but face a daily reality of income, ethnic and other forms of discrimination, where they often find the young people with the most to say to give to their society.  Raegan and Ali coach their participants in reclaiming their narratives, taking the aspects of their stories often perceived as deficits, and turning them into assets for self-actualization, educational progress, and vocational capacity-building. If you would like to learn more about their work, email Raegan at raegansealy@gmail.com.

Public Policy

Lobbying Legislators by Cell Phone
Nancy Mion, AAUW ESVB Public Policy Director

We live in a democracy. The dictionary defines the word thusly-DEMOCRACY –noun– A system of government in which power is vested in the people, who rule either directly or through freely elected representativess. Abraham Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address … government of the people, by the people and for the people… It is as true now as it was 154 years ago.

We elect those who create and pass the laws that determine how we must act. They need to know what we, AAUW members, believe to be the best course of action for the people of our great nation. We, the members of ESVB AAUW, believe in gender equity. We can work to achieve this by being informed and by taking action to be certain that those who represent us know how we feel about pending legislation and governmental actions related to those issues.

Public Policy is one of the areas, where being a Virtual Branch is most effective. Often action to support our Mission of equity for women and girls needs to be taken immediately. The weekly Washington Update, to which I hope you subscribe, gives you the latest Public Policy news and updates from AAUW.

AAUW Public Policy has developed a new way to stay informed and active. It is the Two-Minute Activists mobile. This exciting new tool delivers timely, targeted communication straight to your cell phone via text message and offers other important advocacy features such as the ability to connect with your legislators’ offices by phone. That means AAUW can provide you with strategic opportunities to take action right when your advocacy can make the biggest impact. Your text message from AAUW will make it easy for you to call your US Legislators’ office by phone. After you dial the number given you’ll hear a brief introduction before being automatically routed to the appropriate office. Remember to identify yourself as a constituent, and then ask your legislator to take the desired action.

Ready to take your advocacy to the next level?

Go to http://www.aauw.org/resource/two-minute-activist-mobile/  Complete the form there and opt in to the Two Minute Activists mobile. — or simply text the word “AAUW” to phone number 21333.

Once you sign up for the Two Minute Activist mobile you can advocate for gender equity wherever you go. You provide the voice — AAUW provides the megaphone.

MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Great Total Solar Eclipse of 2017!

A composite image of what the total eclipse looked like from
the Lowell Observatory in Madras, Oregon

 

Mary Watson Whitney (1847-1921)
Goddess of Wisdom
AAUW Member & Professor at Vassar College

On 2017 August 21, a total eclipse of the Sun was visible from within a narrow corridor that traverses the United States of America. The path of the Moon’s umbral shadow began in northern Pacific and crosses the USA from west to east through parts of the following states: Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina. The Moon’s penumbral shadow produces a partial eclipse visible from a much larger region covering most of North America.

According to our AAUW archives, many women have contributed to our knowledge of Astronomy and the universe.  For instance, Astronomer and AAUW member and professor at Vassar College in 1861, Mary Watson Whitney (1847-1921) built the school’s Astronomy program into one of the nation’s finest.  Under her direction, the Vassar Observatory issue 102 articles. Her classmates called Mary “Pallas Ahene”, our Goddess of Wisdom. She fought against the popular notion that women could not carry on sustained scientific research.  She was a passionate mentor, specially committed to securing jobs for women trained in Astronomy and Mathematics.

Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity and Inclusion: What is the Meaning?
Heide Parreño,
Diversity Director, AAUW Empire State Virtual Branch, member of Fairport Area Branch, and former member of National Diversity and Inclusion Task Force, AAUW

 

Millennials believe that diversity and inclusion are essential to business success. Diversity and inclusion are more than just buzzwords or boxes to check. In a new study, Deloitte and the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative ( BJKLI) analyzed responses from 62 questions of 3,726 individuals. These individuals are from a variety of backgrounds with representation across gender, race/ ethnicity, generation, sexual orientation, national status, veteran status, disabilities, level within an organization, and tenure with an organization.

Milllennials view diversity as the blending of different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives within a team.  This is known as cognitive diversity, a necessary element for innovation that is 71% more likely to focus on teamwork.

To read the full article follow the link-– http:/www.fastcompany.com/3046358/the-newrules-of-work/millenials-have-a-different definition-of-diversity-and-inclusion.

What does diversity and inclusion mean to the tech industry ?

Two groups come to mind: one is a tech industry with people with disability and another is Google.

Melissa “Echo” Greenlee, founder and CEO of deaffriendly.com, a website dedicated to bringing awareness to deaf-friendly businesses and corrective feedback to deaf-challenged businesses through consumer reviews, has this to offer:

“ I own and operate the consumer review website deaffriendly, which allows deaf, deaf-blind and hard of hearing consumers throughout the United States to rate and review businesses on how accessible and deaf friendly they are. We employ an all-deaf team of designers, writers, trainers with a variety of experiences and communication modalities. “

The biggest story around diversity and inclusion in 2017 is the headline: “Products for people with disabilities created by people with disabilities”.

The implied meaning of diversity and inclusion for Melissa is to make the world more accessible to 70 million deaf, deaf-blind and hard of hearing people around the globe.

Google:  Google leaders know that diversity on their teams, specifically inclusion from underrepresented groups – is key to having individuals from underrepresented backgrounds apply for its job openings and feel welcome at the company. “We fully acknowledge we have work to do and are committed to this work for the long haul,” says Thygesen, whose own division features a program designed to help grow women and minority-led businesses that are interested in working with Google.

“What diversity and inclusion meant to Google” was put to the test when one of the male engineers wrote a manifesto questioning Google’s diversity training and women’s aptitude for coding.  Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, cut short his vacation to respond to the issue– which resulted in the firing of the engineer.

What does Diversity and Inclusion mean to AAUW? Having the Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion is not enough. What actions can Branches, State and National have?  What can we learn from the Millennials, Google and the Deaffriendly  Group?

Meet AAUW NYC Fellows

Crystal Chen received her doctorate in Education from Teachers College, Columbia University in May 2017, where her research examined the intersections of literacy, teacher education, and urban and multicultural education. Her dissertation is entitled Critical Literacy as Common Ground: The Possibilities of African Immigrant Girls in New York City Public Schools and Community-Based Organizations. Crystal began her teaching career as a high school English teacher in New Jersey. In August 2017, she will be an assistant professor of English Education at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC.

 

Sierra Clouse is a wife, mother, Anti-Human Trafficking Activist, and IT Project Manager. She is currently pursuing her Masters of Science in Information and Knowledge Strategy at Columbia University. She’s passionate about bringing together the power of people and technology to shift the way we pursue success, community transformation, and social justice in the 21st century.

 

Gemma Mangione is a Lecturer in the Arts Administration program at Columbia University and a Consulting Analyst with Randi Korn & Associates. She hold undergraduate degrees in journalism and art history and a M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University.Her work connects practices illuminated through organizational ethnography with mechanisms of broader institutional and policy change. She principally interested in the cultural, moral, and political dynamics of legitimacy. To date, Gemma has explored this general theme by examining knowledge politics across humanities and health fields. Her current research compares programs for visitors with disabilities across art museums and botanical gardens and provides an ethnographic perspective on museums’ “health turn” as it gains traction in cultural policy. She has a sustained commitment to exploring how social scientific theory and evaluation practice can together help people make informed choices about the operations of cultural institutions and the values they contain.

June 2017 Content Suggestions

#1 Faces of Student Debt

AAUW’s new research report Deeper In Debt has shown that women bare a disproportionate amount of student debt. These six women invested in themselves and their future by pursuing higher education. But those degrees came at large price.
Read more.
Image link: https://www.aauw.org/files/2017/06/College-of-DuPage-Celebrates-50th-Commencement-2017-118-min.jpg
Caption***: (Photo credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/codnewsroom/”>COD Newsroom</a>)
***You must use this as a caption to give proper credit to the photo’s source

#2 Three Musts for Intersectional Feminism
Intersectional feminism is to acknowledge multiple overlapping social identities and related systems of oppression. So, while we may want to work under the umbrella term “women,” there is not one global women’s experience. Here are three ways to make sure that your feminism is intersectional.
Read more.

Image link: https://www.aauw.org/files/2017/02/Create-Community.jpg
Alt text: Younger Women’s Task Force – Greater Lafayette Chapter

#3 Reflecting on the First AAUW Lobby Day
With our 49th AAUW National Convention coming up this June, take a minute to look back at our very first Lobby Day. This takes us back in time to 1989 and the 35th AAUW National Convention, where the theme that year was “Choices, Changes, and Connections.”
Read more.

Image link: http://convention.aauw.org/files/2017/05/Lobby-Day600.jpg

Honoring the AAUW NYC Fellows at the Harvard Club!

The Empire State Virtual NY Branch in collaboration with AAUW NYS and AAUW National, hosted a very successful Dinner Recognition for our AAUW NYC Fellows at the Harvard Club in NYC on Thurs. March 16 from 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm.  This event was funded by the NYC Metro Funds. Thirty five friends joined us including AAUW NYC Fellows and AAUW leaders from AAUW NYS Board & District V Branches.