Last night, the AAUW Archivist, Jessica Miller, gave a riveting one-hour tour through the evolution of AAUW’s membership requirements and its mission.

There are a couple of points that need clarification in the context of this campaign.

Degree level requirement

For much of our history, the membership requirement was worded as requiring a degree. As an example, see The History of the American Association of University Women 1881-1931 where it says:

• Page 12: Any woman who has received a degree in Arts, Philosophy, Science or Literature, from any college, university or scientific school, which may be approved by the unanimous vote of the Executive Committee, is entitled to membership in this Association.
• Page 10: [After listing the 17 initial members] It is of interest to note that, with four exceptions, no one of the group had been out of college more than five years, and six had graduated that year or the one preceding.

So it may be assumed that there was no requirement for a degree higher than a baccalaureate. Indeed of the eight institutions granting degrees to the initial members, four were “Colleges” (Oberlin, Smith, Vassar, Wellesley), not “Universities”.

Some confusion arose during the webinar Q&A around when the word “baccalaureate” was introduced to the bylaws and if its introduction meant a lowering of standards. Ms. Miller clarified:

 It’s not that there were zero members with Bachelor’s degrees in our membership, it’s that from the perspective of the by-laws, in 1961 AAUW became more inclusive by acknowledging all Bachelor’s degrees equally as qualification for membership, as they had masters and doctorate programs decades before.

Email, 3/13/2024

Associate Memberships

As early as 1901 Associate Members who had not earned “approved” degrees from institutions on “the list” were allowed. That category was removed from the bylaws in 1957 a few years before the whole idea of a requiring a member’s degree to be from an “approved” institution was replaced by accepting anyone with a baccalaureate or higher degree from a regionally accredited institution.

It came up in the webinar in the context of discussing Eleanor Roosevelt’s membership. She was given (an Associate) membership as the First Lady of New York State even though she had not pursued any higher education.

Associate memberships were mentioned in the bylaws until the major changes introduced in 2009. Since no new Associate members had been admitted after 1957, all such members would have qualified for 50-year status and, presumably, their renewals were handled on a case-by-case basis after 2009. Here is what the 2003 Bylaws says about them:

Associate members are those who were admitted prior to July 1, 1957, upon completion of at least two years of nonprofessional work as would have been credited toward an approved degree in any college or university on the Association membership list at that time. None shall be admitted after that date. Associate members shall be members of the branch and state only and shall maintain their status as associate members until their resignation from the branch in which they are currently enrolled. Associate members currently enrolled in a branch shall be permitted to transfer to another branch, provided the number of associate members in that branch does not exceed twenty percent (20%) of the total membership of the branch. The total dues paid by associate members to a branch shall be the same as those of members of the Association and shall include a subscription to the Association publication distributed to all members. Associate members may not serve as a state officer nor as branch officers fulfilling the functions of president, membership, program or finance.

Scanned from “2003 Charter and Bylaws”

This is the one time when AAUW made its requirements less inclusive. Open Up AAUW opposed a bylaws change in 2017 that would have introduced a similar two-tier membership system. That amendment failed by a very narrow margin.