Untapped Source of Peace

Untapped Source of Peace
a beautiful poem

Jean Shinoda Bolen

Untappped source of peace,
The only real hope
Is to draw upon the collective wisdom of women.
Those with direct experience of the cost of war:
The life of child, grandchild, sibling, spouse.
The loss of limb or mind of someone near and dear,
The loss of laughter, the pervasiveness of fear,
The loss of hope for the future.

Untapped source of peace,
Those who know of domestic violence:
Seen the effect of bullying on sons,
Seen daughters become silent,
Seen light go out in their eyes.
Those who know
That when every child matters,
When none are hungry, abused or discounted
The world will become a kinder place
For us all

Untapped source of peace,
Women with empathy
Who live in a world apart,
Are safe, loved, and fortunate,
Yet can imagine
Being helpless, beaten, and raped,
Then forced to bear a child
Conceived in violence.
Women who know in their hearts
That what happens to any woman
Anywhere
Could happen to them.

Untapped source of peace,
Women who see loved ones filled with vengeance and hate,
Hyper-vigilant, fear-ridden, or afraid to sleep
Because of the nightmares.
Husbands, brothers, sons, and now daughters
Home from wars,
Bearing little resemblance to who they could have been
In a peaceful world.
Untapped source of peace,
Women in circles,
Women connecting,
Women together
Bringing the sacred feminine,
Maternal instinct, sister archetype,
Mother power
Into the world.

AAUW NYS District V Conference

Ten Reasons to Attend
the District V Conference
Focus on Feminism:
Past & Present, Near & Far

New York Institute of Technology
16 W 61st Street, 11th Floor Auditorium, New York, NY 10023
2:00 – 5:00 pm
October 3, 2015 in NYC

Get the scoop on AAUW NYS Summer Meeting in July 24-26, 2015
“What happens at Caze, stays at Caze” need not apply.
Spend a Saturday afternoon on campus, enjoying the facilities of one of C/U partners in Manhattan. Tours will be available
Hone your networking skills as you meet new members and/or reconnect with dear friends and branch members throughout our District V AAUW NYS branches and to share our successful and fun AAUW mission based programs.
Meet Nnenna Agba, AAUW Career Development Grant Recipient from Nigeria; and her mentor Kechie Ogbodo, the founder of Kechie’s Project and learn of her amazing work in Nigeria to educate and empower girls.
Celebrate International Day of the Girl by bringing school supplies for Kechie’s Project
Take advantage of our special 2/1 offer and bring a girl to this event
Become a GI – get informed, get inspired and get involved to revitalize your branch and community.
Meet Jennifer Hall Lee, outstanding filmmaker and feminist extraordinaire, and find out why she had to make this film.
Let’s focus on feminism, so we can boldly answer when asked, “Are you a feminist?”

To register for the conference, click on the link: AAUW District V Conference Registration Form

See you on October 3^rd!! Joan Monk, ftmaven@gmail.com

Greetings from our AAUW NYS Summer meeting in Cazenovia, NY

Greetings from our AAUW NYS Summer meeting in Cazenovia, NY. We had lots of fun while living our AAUW mission and preparing branches to better connect activities with community needs and planning our 2016 AAUW NYS Convention which will take place in Saratoga Springs on April 15-17, 2016.

The Empire State Virtual Branch will be hosting the AAUW NYS District V Conference scheduled for Sat. October 3, 2016 from 2-5 pm at the New York Institute of Technology.
To register for the conference click on: AAUW District V Conference Registration Form
Registration Deadline: September 21, 2015.

HOORAY! NYS EQUAL PAY BILL TO BECOME LAW!

HOORAY!
NYS EQUAL PAY BILL TO BECOME LAW!

The NYS Assembly unanimously passed NYS Equal Pay Bills on April 27, 2015. The NYS Senate had approved them earlier this Session. AAUW and others have lobbied for Equal Pay Bills for well over a decade. When the Governor signs the Bills, he has said he will, in 90 days they will be law.

The Women’s Equality Coalition, of which we are a member, reports that A.6075 updates New York Equal Pay Law by creating robust wage secrecy protections, so that employees cannot be fired or retaliated against for sharing their wage information as well as allow for increased damages up to triple the amount of unpaid wages when an employee successfully proves that an employer has willfully violated the law.

These are essential components in achieving pay equity. A person must know how much others who are doing equal/comparable work are being paid to institute a legal action. Having access to proof that wage discrimination on the basis of gender exists means cases can be won, thus forcing employers to face paying severe damages when they pay employees inequitably. The passage of this law means a reduction in the 86% gender wage gap in NYS.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Thank your NYS Assembly Member for voting for A6075. Contact info at http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/ fill in you zip & address, click and email your message.

Ask your member of the House of Representatives to co-sponsor the Paycheck Fairness Act. How? Go to aauw.org; click on Take Action; enter your zip code then complete the Tow Minute Activist. AAUW Action Network members were asked to respond on April 17 to the e-mail titled “Ride the Equal Pay Day Wave”.
It is certainly acceptable to contact your federal legislator more than once about an issue. To paraphrase the Tammany Hall quote ”Write Early and Write Often”

Congratulations on the passage of the NY Equal Pay Bills. It would not have happened without your support.

Nancy Mion, ESVB Public Policy Director

Start Smart Workshop: Learning to Negotiate the Wage Gap

Learning to Negotiate the Wage Start Smart Workshop Sponsored by

AAUW’s Westchester and Empire State Virtual Branch!
Place: College of Mount Saint Vincent: Fall 2015

Suzanne DeChillo/photographer, The New York Times Annie Houle of the WAGE Project uses
$1 bills and play money to show men’s pay advantage over different groups of women. Her program teaches women how to negotiate for better salaries.

Did you see the article on the wage gap on the front page of the business section of the New York Times? If you haven’t read the article, click on the link below for details:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/business/to-solve-the-gender-wage-gap-learn-to-speak-up.html?ref=business&_r=1

Empire State Virtual Branch New Member

Juliet Tarantino, Empire State Virtual Branch New Member

We are delighted to welcome, Juliet Tarantino, newest primary member of the Empire State Virtual Branch! During fiscal year 2015-2016.”

Juliet Tarantino joins the AAUW with international experience in education and academic training in anthropology (MA in Anthropology for The New School for Social Research). While an undergraduate student at the University of New Hampshire (Dual BA in Anthropology in International Affairs), she organized and led a week-long social justice awareness trip of twelve students to Nicaragua, where trip participants learned about the work of local grassroots organizations and facilitated classroom art activities. Her thesis, based on original research she conducted in Ecuador, examined the entanglement of Ecuadorian Otavaleño’s rejection of tradition alongside their utilization of distinctive traditional dress to bolster their sales of artisan-made items. After graduating from college, Juliet was selected by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education for the position of North American Culture and Language Assistant and taught English in Madrid.

Back in the U.S. and determined to maintain the level of Spanish fluency she had gained in Madrid, Juliet took on the role of Bilingual Intake Coordinator at an immigrant legal services and refugee resettlement agency in Chicago. There, she compiled a series of client stories expressing how their lives had changed after gaining residency in the U.S. She also worked as an independent translator, translating personal statements in support of VAWA cases. Inspired to engage more critically with issues of social justice, Juliet gained her master’s degree in New York City, and began teaching academic research writing to college-bound seniors from underserved high schools. She also coordinates low-cost Spanish classes in her Brooklyn neighborhood as a means of building community. She is interested in immigrant and refugee issues, scholastic achievement gaps, and using research and education to teach social justice.

EYO Conference 2015

Explore Your Opportunities:
The Sky’s the Limit!^TM13th Year Conference, April 16, 2016
College of Mount Saint Vincent, Riverdale (Bronx), New York

Congratulations to Lorrin Johnson, Wilma Gitchel and Marilee Scheuneman for another successful Explore Your Opportunities: the Sky’s the Limit Conference held on March 21, 2015 at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, New York. We have received great reviews from our 7th grade participants about all the 17 workshops given at this Conference. . Our key note speaker, the Australian GPS girl, Karen Jabosen received the most accolades from our students. We were all very engaged and enjoyed Karen’s “Recalculate” motivational talk!

The 7-Grade girls attended the following17 workshops for EYO 2015:

Playing Games in Alice World”: earn to create interactive games using “Alice” programming.
Brain Games: Learn about some of the mind boggling things a brain can do from making memories to controlling emotions.
Flower Hour: Observe and describe flowers and discover similarities that group them and differences that make them unique.
It’s a Sugar…It’s a Base…It’s DNA! : Discover the structure of DNA and learn how to isolate DNA from your own cells painlessly.
Acoustics & Wildlife – Sound Can Save Animals!: How do scientists track whales, recognize birds, and count tigers and frogs? They use sound!
What Color is a Rose?: Roses are red, violets are blue, ever wonder how plants get their color? See which plant pigments are hiding in your favorite plants using paper chromatography!
Datalogging-A-Bot: Learn how to program a robot to analyze sounds using a sound sensor.
Plant Superhighways: An introduction to the vascular system of plants with real-life applications in the food and florist industries.
Grrrrrrls Leading the Way in Animal Science: Learn how you can enhance animal lives and wellbeing in a hands-on enrichment workshop.
Blizzard in a Bottle!: Create a “snowflake crystal” scene in a jar using Chemistry!
Cool Web Design: Learn the basics of HTML and JavaScript by making your own “Web Page”.
Paper Engineering + Origami = (Fun)^:Use paper and geometry to build a spherical container to store jewelry and other small items.
Play Doctor: Learn the physical exam components and tools that doctors and PAs use to evaluate sick patients.
Hands-On Cosmetic Chemistry (2 sessions): Step into the laboratory and design your own cosmetic potion.
Wading Through The Web: Smarter searching on the Internet – DeeperWeb, Clusty, Carrot, website reliability checks. Oh My.
Brain on Overload?: Learn about the neuroscience of cognition while conducting tests on the effects of multitasking.
Using Leverage to get Super Powers: Learn basics about how levers can multiply force and how leverage is used in everyday items.

AAUW-NYS 2015 Convention Speakers

Nancy Mion, our Empire State Virtual Branch Public Policy Director and AAUW Islip Area Branch Long Island Suffragists Committee Chair. Nancy comes by this naturally for her grandfather, Nathaniel Schmidt, a professor at Cornell, was an active suffragist. She is a member of the statewide NYCHTN Women, Right’s Committee. Nancy is currently: Islip Area Branch Program Vice-President & Public Policy Director; L.I. Interbranch Secretary/Treasurer; NYS Legal Advocacy Fund (LAF) Director; and a National AAUW LAF Committee Member. She is a past NYS President and Public Policy Director. She has been an involved dedicated committed AAUW member for 40 years. Her other abiding interest is the Suffolk County Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Nancy was a librarian who received her BBA in Management from Hofstra University and her MS in LS from SUNY Albany.

If you would like a copy of Nancy’s Powerpoint presentation on the history of the suffrage movement especially as it applies to New York. Contact Nancy Mion at myown220@aol.com.

If you were not able to attend Joan Monk’s presentation about Eleanor Roosevelt and Leadership: “Eleanor’s Alphabet Soup”, you can e-mail Joan at ftmaven@gmail.com about interesting program(s) for your branch.

As you know, Joan is a fairy tale/happiness/play enthusiast engaging students of all ages in what has heart and meaning for her. With an e-mail moniker of ‘ftmaven’ she has been dubbed the “AAUW NYS Unofficial Director of Whimsy” because of her passion for fairy tales. As the former Education Director of the Peter Pan Children’s Fund, she has unlimited access to pixie dust, sprinkling it wherever she goes!

Her latest fairy tale endeavor is “The Wonder & Wisdom of Oz,” celebrating the 75th Anniversary of America’s favorite fairy tale with students from age 4-104. As a Master Teacher in the Yonkers Public Schools, Joan “worked her magic” lovingly there for nearly four decades. She considers herself “an inspired not retired” educator, having worked as an early childhood teacher, parent trainer, workshop leader and college professor. Now she is putting put volunteer work center stage in her encore career. Jacob Burns Film Center, Westchester Children’s Museum and The Academy for Character Education at Sage College all benefit from her energy and enthusiasm.

Inspired by the mission of AAUW, she joined as a ‘lifetime member” twenty years ago. She is a member of four branches in NYS: Westchester, Kingston, Poughkeepsie and ESVVB. At present, Joan is Special Projects Director, District V Coordinator and is chairing the NY/NJ WILD Project. She served as District Director, International Affairs Chair and Cultural Interests Director also. She lives in Yorktown with Rob the prince, Toto the dog, and Mushy the cat.

Congratulations to the AAUW NYS Convention Team!

Jane Russell

Jane Pfeiffer Russell
AAUW-NYS Program VP

Congratulations and thanks to Jane Pfeiffer Russell, AAUW-NYS Program VP and the Convention Team for an excellent AAUW NYS Convention held on April 17-19, 2015 at the Byblos Niagara Resort and Spa Grand Island, NY. Jane was the Moderator on Saturday Morning Panel of Municipal Leaders which included special guest, Kathy Hochul, NYS Lt Governor; Marjory Jaeger, Amherst Town Clerk; Julie Huntsman, Otsego Town Council; Crystal Peoples-Stokes, NYS Assembly; Lovely Warren, Mayor of Rochester. The speakers were very informative and inspirational.

As you may know, in 2011, Jane was elected Supervisor for the Town of Pulteney. When taking office the Town was in arrears financially $20,000 and upon leaving office at the end of 2013 the coffers held over $300,000. She has been a staunch advocate for antifracking in NY and held a position on the steering committee for Elected Officials to Protect NY. During that two years much time was spend in lobbying the Governor, the NYS DEC and the NYS DOH as well as local advocacy events. Jane joined AAUW in 1976 when she moved back to Steuben County and has held many local and state offices, including that of AAUW NYS Program Vice President in the early 2000’s. She was part of the then widely visible “Living the Mission” program developed by the NYS Board under Evvie Currie’s presidency.

AAUW-NYS 2015 Convention Pictures