Lesa Turnquist | Copy Co-Editor
According to their website, AAUW (American Association of University Women) is the nation’s leading voice in promoting equity and education for women and girls. Their purpose is to work to advance equity for women an girls through advocacy, education, philanthropy, and research. AAUW is a nationwide organization that branches into states, cities, and even universities.
The AAUW Storm Lake and Buena Vista University (BVU) branches held a soup supper and pie auction fundraiser on Saturday, Nov. 8 at Lake Ave Lounge. This fundraiser will help fund students to go to the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders (NCCWSL).
BVU’s branch just started this year, but with the help of the Storm Lake branch and Dr. David Evans, BVU was able to send two junior students, Bonnie Keller and Brandy Fowler, to the NCCWSL last summer held in Washington D.C. At the conference, they attended educational workshops and listened to many strong women leaders. Keller is now also the current President for the BVU branch.
“One of my favorite experiences was listening to one of the keynote speakers, Chelsea Clinton. She is an amazing woman who radiates confidence. One of the main messages I took away from her speech was that if I wanted something to change, I needed to make a change in myself. It is just awesome that there are women like her that can produce so much empowerment within a person,” Keller said.
The fundraiser held Saturday night will help send other students to the next NCCWSL. They will hold another fundraiser in the spring in efforts to collect more money for the leadership conference.
“We will start accepting applicants in February to decide who gets to go to the national conference this summer. We will send as many students as we can fund. Applicants must be a female BVU student who has at least one year of school left at BVU,” advisor of the BVU branch Jennifer McNabb said.
The BVU branch of AAUW’s current project is educating the student body about International Day for Tolerance on Sunday, Nov. 16. Additional information can be found here. Posters will be around campus educating on the issues of gender inequality. They will also be showing the movie “Iron Jawed Angels” at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 16 and will have a quick discussion about the movie after it. Their next two meetings are going to be held in the Social Sciences and Arts (SSA) building on Sunday, Nov. 23 and Sunday, Dec. 7 at 4:00 p.m.
Graphic by Justice Gage
