As a member of AAUW’s National Student Advisory Council, I am responsible for helping with a campus program focused on women’s equity, so I decided to help with the national Equal Pay Day event on my campus in Hawaii. The Women’s Center had hosted the event in previous years, but when I met with the Women’s Center director in October 2008, I found out they were not hosting it this year. She suggested I host the event and they would help me. That was not part of my clean little plan, but I decided I would stick it out and host the event myself.
To become eligible for campus funding, I formed and became the president of a campus Gender Equity Club. I wrote bylaws, found six women to join my club, and submitted all my registration papers. I completed grant applications for campus funding, crossed my t’s, dotted my i’s, got fiscal officers and department heads to sign on as sponsors, and waited. Unfortunately, after going through the whole process to try to get funding, I was not granted any by my university. But I saw the process of applying for the grants as a very valuable lesson.
I met with the president of the AAUW Windward (HI) Branch, Kathy Jaycox, and she agreed to assist me in applying for AAUW funding. AAUW provided a grant through the LAF Campus Outreach Program. With this funding, I moved forward with the project.
After months of planning and partnering with campus organizations and the Windward branch, I was able to host a successful event. I hung posters with facts about the wage gap (gathered with the help of AAUW member Gay Armsden) around the tent by the campus center. I had 40 red t-shirts printed with the slogan “Keep the Change until Women Have Real Change” and handed them out to students, many of whom put them on right then and there. We had a DJ playing protest songs, which gave the event a festive ambience. A computer with Internet access allowed people to access information about how to negotiate salaries.
We held a very successful cookie sale with cookies provided and sold by the dedicated ladies of the Windward branch. Cookies were $1 for men and 78¢ for women. Some of the proceeds from the cookie sale went back into the Windward branch’s education fund. Everyone enjoyed the cookie sale; even the men got on board with the idea and were more than willing to pay their share.
The event was a success. More than 200 students walked through our information tent, and many received AAUW brochures, “Keep the Change” posters, t-shirts, and “I Am the Face of Pay Equity” stickers. Personally, I was exhausted by the time the day was through, but it was an exhilarating exhaustion, if there is such a thing. I had started with a simple statement of “okay, I’ll do it,” and here I was at the end of the day being able to say, “I did it!” Many people helped me, and in particular, props go out to the ladies of the AAUW Windward (HI) Branch for all their support with this event. I truly saw them living the AAUW theme of advancing equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, and research. I hope there will be no wage gap in 2010, but if there is I am ready for “Keep the Change 2010.”
This blog post was written by 2008–09 SAC member Pamela Nakanelua.
