For the last year, a national e-mail list has been used to send information on program ideas related to AAUW’s new theme, “Education as the Gateway to Women’s Economic Security”. If you’d like to be part of the North Carolina “theme team” – with a commitment to distributing these ideas and putting them into action – let Nancy know and she’ll get you subscribed so you see these messages as soon as they come out.

For more about programming ideas related to the theme, see www.aauw.org/newvision and, in particular, the one page handout which documents the wide variety of programs generated from the theme.
Read on for the latest updates.

Subject: AAUW FYI: Planning for an Economically Secure Future
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 11:32:27 -0500
From: “Maatz, Lisa”
To: “AAUW theme”

Dear State Theme Teams —
Following the successful programmatic strategy used this year for AAUW’s “Building a Harassment Free Campus” project, in 2007 AAUW will once again be pairing ground-breaking research with theme-related projects that put the research into action on college campuses as well as public policy efforts to engage members and the public on AAUW priority issues. Read on for the exciting details about AAUW’s latest project in support of our theme, Education as the Gateway to Women’s Economic Security.

“Planning for an Economically Secure Future”

Ground-breaking Research
While several measures of educational achievement show that on average women are faring as well as their male counterparts today, often times these gains do not translate into comparable economic success beyond college. In 2004, college-educated women 25 and older earned 75 percent of what their male peers earned. This pay gap appears within the first year after college – even when women are working full-time in the same fields as men – and widens in the first ten years in the workforce. AAUW Educational Foundation research, to be released in Spring 2007, points to several factors that appear to be pivotal including the field of study, the decision to have children, and occupational choice. (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 1993/2003 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study.)

AAUW Campus Action Project Teams Selected
The AAUW Leadership and Training Institute is pleased to announce this year’s Campus Action Project (CAP) grant awardees. Ten teams from around the country have been selected to implement projects on their campus under the theme Planning for an Economically Secure Future during spring 2007. And, CAP teams will also be presenting at AAUW’s 2007 National Conference of College Women Student Leaders; has your branch or state thought about providing a scholarship for some lucky college woman to attend this leadership conference? The 2006 conference was a great success; watch for the 2007 conference web site early in the new year!

If the Campus Action Project (CAP) link, above, is not working, simply cut and paste the following address into your web browser: http://www.aauw.org/campus_connection/cap/CAP_career_planning_teams.cfm

If the 2006 National Conference of College Women Student Leaders link, above, is not working, simply cut and paste the following address into your web browser: http://www.aauw.org/nccwsl/2006/highlights.cfm

Equal Pay Day is April 24
In 2005, the most recent year for which U.S. Department of Labor data is available, working women as a whole continue to earn only 77 cents on the dollar to their male counterparts. To match men’s earnings for 2005, women have to work from January 2006 into April 2007­ an extra four months. To bring awareness to this inequity, AAUW and coalition allies across the country will recognize Equal Pay Day on April 24, 2007. Use AAUW’s Pay Equity Resource Kit to begin planning now for your April activities. In fact, Equal Pay Day activities are perfect for your state convention this Spring.
[You’ll find the] Pay Equity Resource Kit [at] http://www.aauw.org/issue_advocacy/actionpages/payequity.cfm

Stay tuned for more information on the “Planning for an Economically Secure Future” project in the new year! Also, please ensure that this information gets out to your branches as soon as possible so they can begin their own planning — use your email listservs to reach branch presidents, public policy chairs, program chairs, and EF chairs and anyone else whose planning will benefit from this useful information.

From all of us at AAUW, best wishes to all of you for a safe and happy holiday season, and a healthy and productive new year.

Lisa

Lisa M. Maatz
Director of Public Policy and Government Relations
Interim Director, AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund
American Association of University Women