Celebrating 82 Years of AAUW in Monmouth

Monmouth, Illinois March 2007

From the Co-Presidents Buban, Vice President for Program, and Shirley Lila Blum and Marilyn Van Ausdall Dadonna, Treasurer. Please give it some thought. It was a proud moment and most enlightening at the February meeting when three of our own We were pleased to see so many branch branch members, Ruby, Laksmi, and Isa members at member Jane Jakoubek’s interesting discussed the status and progress of women in talk in “The F Word” series at Monmouth College. their respective countries. We were reminded On March 28, at 7 p.m., member Ruby Pentsil- that women’s struggle for equal status is ongoing Bukari will give a talk in the same series in the and that progress is gradual. During the Morgan Room on campus. animated social period, hostesses Estelle Barnes and Jonalyn Heaton provided delicious Our March meeting will be held at the Monmouth refreshments. College Art Gallery on March 19 where Brian Baugh will give a gallery talk about the faculty art We have entered into a busy period of branch exhibition currently on display. We will hold a activities. The Women’s History Month Essay business meeting following the program. Please Contest is in progress with a large number of see the details of the March program and the essays submitted by sixth graders in Warren directions for parking on campus in a separate County. Preparations for the District #238 school article in this issue of the Initiative. We look th board candidates’ meetings are underway. forward to seeing you on the 19 ! Please read more about this important public event in a separate article. Gallery Talk: The Monmouth College Art Faculty Exhibition We invite you to consider attending the AAUW-IL Lila Blum convention in Bloomington on April 27-28. By that time we can enjoy the beauty of spring as we On Monday, March 19, at 7 p.m., we will meet at journey across Illinois. Whether or not you can Monmouth College in the Len G. Everett Gallery attend the convention, we’d like you to think located on the second floor of the Hewes Library. about being nominated for one of the two branch Our guest speaker will be Brian Baugh, Assistant offices that will be vacant at the end of the year: Professor of Art, who will discuss the art works of Membership Vice President and Secretary. Kathy seven art department faculty members which are Lowe-Arthur and Joyce Hagemann, currently in currently on display. The exhibition features these offices, are willing to answer your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpture, questions about their job responsibilities. You ceramics, and watercolors by Cheryl Meeker, will enjoy being part of the leadership team with Stacy Lotz, Stephanie Baugh, Brian Baugh, Tyler Ronda Willhardt, incoming President, and Nancy Hennings, Steve Ingram, and Mary Phillips.

1 County Public Library on Monday, March 19, at Brian, who holds an MFA in painting from 4:30. She will talk about the reading-writing University of Florida, and a BFA in painting and connection and the way her life, particularly her printmaking from the University of Montevallo in childhood in Ethiopia, has affected her writing. Alabama, joined the Monmouth faculty in 2005. Please come! You can read more about her at His art works have been in juried exhibitions at janekurtz.com. University of Florida and at the Lyndon House Arts Center in Athens, Georgia. The still life works he created for the current show “come from a love of the process of drawing and painting from direct observation,” he says. Interested in the art of the past, he explains, “I draw and paint in a traditional style based on a study of the old masters’ techniques.” Brian School Board Candidates’ Meetings teaches courses in drawing, painting, and design. Marilyn Van Ausdall

Please join us for this special opportunity to view Lila and I hope that branch members who live in the show and learn more from Brian’s the Monmouth-Roseville School District will be presentation about the variety of techniques and able to attend one or both of the scheduled ideas with which all the artists are working. forums. The first one will be Tuesday, March 27, at M-R High School auditorium in Monmouth at 7 In compliance with a restriction on food from off p.m., and the second one will be the following campus, we will not serve refreshments at this Tuesday, April 3, in the M-R Junior High event. Nevertheless we will enjoy our usual social gymnasium in Roseville at 7 p.m. Helpers will be time between the program presentation and the needed to distribute notecards and pencils to business meeting which will be held in Room 124 those in attendance who wish to submit on the first floor. questions, and then to deliver the questions to the moderator. A word about parking: To park in the lot close to the library on the west side, take North 6th A list of questions was developed by some of our Street to Clinton Avenue, turn east toward the members and submitted to the candidates on campus and proceed the equivalent of two Saturday, March 3. The answers are due back blocks. The parking lot will come into view. by March 19, and will then be combined into an Parking is also available article and submitted to newspapers in along the street on East Monmouth, Roseville, and Galesburg. The Detroit Avenue between school board election will be Tuesday, April 17. North 9th Street and North th 10 Street or in Vicki Public Policy Young’s driveway which can accommodate up to Jan DeYoung four cars. (Vicki’s house is at 513 North 9th Street, but As we look forward to our AAUW-sponsored candidates’ forums for Monmouth-Roseville her driveway is accessed from Detroit.) After parking and walking the short distance to 9th District 238 School Board on March 27 and April 3, we need to be well informed on some of the Street, walk south and enter the campus between Cleland and Winbigler Residence Halls. The many issues facing educators and school boards today. Naturally, a majority of our questions will entrance to the east side of the library comes into view. focus on local issues, but we need to recognize some facts which influence the quality of the education we provide for our children and Author Jane Kurtz to Speak at grandchildren based on the way schools in Illinois Warren County Public Library are funded. Jan DeYoung Did you know that although Illinois is the fifth Noted children's author and Monmouth College largest state in population and personal income, graduate Jane Kurtz will speak at the Warren 2 and 12th highest in personal income per student, The A+ Illinois website (www.aplusillinois.org) we rank 47th in the amount of funding the state has an enormous amount of well-researched and provides for public education? clearly written material to help citizens understand the connection between inequitable Did you know that we have the worst gap in per funding and the achievement gap. Please take pupil spending on education, from a high of time to check out some of the material! If you $23,000 per child to a low of less than $5000 per haven’t signed the petition, please sign it online child? (Monmouth-Roseville’s per-child or at the next branch meeting. And be prepared spending is $6,537.29, very near the low end, to ask our candidates how hard they are willing to and slightly higher than the state minimum work to get this problem corrected foundation level of $5,164.) As a result of this disparity, the gap in achievement between high- Other Issues in Education and low-spending districts is one of the highest in At the federal level, the Continuing Resolution, the country and growing rapidly. The No Child keeping the government going, expired in Left Behind Act penalizes schools that do not February. As the President worked on the meet certain standards, and yet funding in Illinois FY2007 and 08 budgets, increases in both the favors districts with the highest Equalized Pell Grant program an No Child Left Behind Assessed Valuations and penalizes districts with were questionable, as were adequate funding of high numbers of poor, minority, and disabled the Women’s Equity in Education Act and Perkins students — those who need the greatest support! loans. AAUW will continue to work to ensure that these programs which are essential to achieving One thing our local board members can do is join equity are adequately funded. We will also need the A+ Illinois coalition and work hard to lobby the to continue to monitor Title IX to maintain the Illinois General Assembly to change the way important protections provided by this legislation. Illinois schools are funded. A+ Illinois espouses the following five principles: Well be looking for YOU at one (or both) of the Candidates’ Forums! 1. Ensure that all children receive a quality education by establishing adequate, reliable, Monmouth WITASWAN Film sustainable funding for Illinois schools. Discussion Group 2. Develop state-based tax revenues based on a Donna Sproston fair, efficient, stable, responsible, and transparent system that is not regressive, that encourages The Monmouth WITASWAN Film Group will meet responsible and accountable use of public funds, on Thursday, March 22, at 7 p.m. at the home of that helps create responsible economic Nancy Buban, 207 S. 8th development, job creation and sound regional Street. Come celebrate planning, and that helps close the state’s Women's History Month with structural deficit. us. We will watch Iron Jawed Angels, a 2004 HBO 3. Support proven strategies that build capacity film by Katja von Garnier to improve student learning and starring Hilary Swank, close the student achievement gap. Anjelica Huston, and an outstanding cast. This made- 4. Put our state on more sound fiscal footing to for-television movie tells "the protect education, human services and remarkable and little-known story of a group of community programs that are vital to the well- passionate and dynamic young women led by being of children and families, particularly those Alice Paul and her friend Lucy Burns who put Illinoisans most in need. their lives on the line to fight for American women's right to vote." 5. Break the strong correlation between individuals’ addresses and the quality of their Third Annual WITASWAN Program schools, availability of their housing options, and Marilyn Van Ausdall the health of their local communities and economy. 3 On March 31, from 12:30-3:00 p.m., at complex culture as well as its rapid, Landmark’s Century Center Theater on Clark and brutal transition to capitalism. Diversey in Chicago, Somebody's Child: The Redemption of Rwanda, will be shown. Five The program is in the Whiteman-McMillan Illinois organizations are collaborating on this Highlander Room at the Stockdale Center, with Women’s History Month program under the free admission. An optional buffet lunch is banner of WITASWAN. Felicia Middlebrooks, the available for $6.50. To make a lunch reservation, director/producer of the film, will be the honored please email Assistant Professor Leisa guest. For more details, and a link to the Kauffmann at [email protected]. reservation form, go to http://www.films42.com/witaswan/march-07.asp. Membership Update Kathy Lowe-Arthur Adelante! Book Discussion Group Vicki Young We have over 40 members, so our new goal is to have 50 members. Thanks to all who have Ruth Wright has graciously offered to host the suggested possible members and who have April 12 meeting at her home brought guests to our meetings. Continue talking (332 South 8th Street, up AAUW! Monmouth). We will meet at 7 p.m. and have a short discussion of March, followed by a AAUW-IL State News discussion on Barack Obama's Nancy K. Daugherty The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming President, AAUW-IL, Inc. the American Dream.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards is scheduled for May 10. AAUW Staff Announcement Mary Robinson, has joined AAUW's staff and will Both of these books are available at the Warren serve as Boards and Governance Manager. She County Public Library. is assigned to the Executive Office and will be primarily responsible for providing staff liaison International Luncheon support and managing communications with both boards, regional directors, standing committees Erma Smallwood chairs, and state presidents. The next International Luncheon is Wednesday, March 28, at noon. Professor Mary Bruce will talk The Legal Advocacy Fund 2007 Progress in about “Russia: Flavorful and Complicated as Equity Award information is on the AAUW-IL Borscht.” website: Each year the AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund's Progress in Equity Award recognizes a college or university program that has resulted in significant progress for women on campus. Recipients receive a stipend of up to $10,000 and public recognition throughout their communities, campus, and AAUW.

Online registration is now available for the AAUW Convention in Phoenix on the AAUW website.

March Women’s History Month Professor Bruce received a Fulbright Fellowship March 31 Witaswan Film Event in Chicago to spend a semester in Russia. She will show March 31 Deadline: "Annual Notice of slides of Moscow, St. Petersburg, a few rural Election to Participate in Group towns, the universities, and discuss Russia's 4 Exemption" form due to the through advocacy, education and research. Association from each branch April 25 Pay Equity Day Association website: www.aauw.org April 27-28 AAUW-IL Convention in AAUW-Illinois website: www.aauw-il.org Bloomington Monmouth Branch website: June 7-9 National Conference of College http://department.monm.edu/aauw/ Women Student Leaders in Initiative Editor: Amy Zesbaugh, Washington, D.C. [email protected] Has your branch or state thought about providing a scholarship for some lucky college woman to attend this leadership conference?

Jane Kurtz Talk: March 19, 4:30 p.m., Warren County Public Library Branch Meeting: March 19, 7 p.m., Monmouth College Library WITASWAN: March 22, 7 p.m., 207 S. 8th Street Candidates’ Forum: March 27, 7 p.m., Monmouth-Roseville High School auditorium The F Word: March 28, 7 p.m., the Morgan Room, Monmouth College Candidates’ Forum: April 3, 7 p.m., Monmouth- Roseville Junior High School gymnasium Adelante! Book Group: April 12, 7 p.m., 332 S. 8th Street, Monmouth

AAUW advances equity for women and girls 5