Female graduate and undergraduate students will have a new champion on campus, come the end of the spring semester. A SMU branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) will discuss its coming priorities and relevance as a research funding resource for women students at an April 29 meeting.

“AAUW’s goal to empower women for leadership and in scholarship, as well as in careers that are dominated by men, are goals shared by SMU and its commitment to women,” said Isabel Docampo, professor of supervised ministry and event coordinator.

The organization, which is free for undergraduates and $18.81 for graduate students, supports women in fields where they are traditionally underrepresented, such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics. At SMU, where there is a significant presence of women in the sciences, this support may aid students in other fields where women are underrepresented that are specific to the campus, like theology, said Professor Beth Newman, acting undergraduate representative for AAUW.

“Historically [the AAUW] has stood for defending and supporting women as a social group and within academia. They offer opportunities for undergraduate and graduate student funding, fellowships and grants,” Newman said.

SMU is already a partner institution of the AAUW and will be re-launching the campus branch at the April 29 meeting.

“We hope to discuss a more focused mission for our AAUW SMU group and identify a short list of priorities for 2014-15. It will be important to have each segment well-represented—undergraduate and graduate students, staff and faculty at that meeting,” Docampo said.

The first AAUW meeting will take place April 29 at 12:30 p.m. in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center, Promenade A-B. Those interested should email Docampo at [email protected], for more information and to RSVP.