CHICAGO–(ENEWSPF)–April 23, 2015. Student leaders at Roosevelt University are asking their peers as well as Roosevelt faculty, staff, alumni and friends to vote for Eleanor Roosevelt as part of a national campaign to put a woman on the nation’s $20 bills. (Pictured above from left holding Eleanor Roosevelt $20-bill fliers are: Philip Crawford, president-elect of the Student Government Association, Rachel Pieczura, SGA president, and SGA Senator Wilvincent Go.)
Blanketing the University with fake $20s featuring Roosevelt’s picture, members of the Roosevelt Student Government Association (SGA) are making a University-wide appeal for all to vote at www.womenon20s.org for the former first lady as the first woman to be placed on U.S. currency. Founded in 1945, Roosevelt University is named for Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.
“We believe that it’s about time that we put a woman onto our money,” said Roosevelt SGA President Rachel Pieczura, who began the campaign this week with other SGA leaders in response to a call by the group Women on 20s for a female to be placed on the U.S. $20 bill.
Aiming to put a woman on the nation’s $20 bills by 2020, the national organization has collected more than 283,000 votes for four historic and prominent American female candidates. They are: Roosevelt, civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, abolitionist Harriet Tubman and Native American activist Wilma Mankiller.
“We believe it’s important to get the word out for Eleanor Roosevelt,” said Pieczura, who notes the former first lady’s accomplishments as a social justice activist, humanitarian, leading advocate for the United Nations’ Universal Declaration for Human Rights and the namesake of Roosevelt University.
With some 7,000 people in the University community and an estimated 95,000 alumni, student leaders at Roosevelt believe that their University-wide push for the former first lady could be a game changer.
“We’re really excited about this campaign and the prospect of igniting people to vote for a woman who has meant a lot to a University that is now celebrating its 70th anniversary,” added Phil Crawford, chair of SGA’s Communications Committee and SGA’s president-elect.
Crawford and other students will be hanging a banner-size $20 bill featuring Eleanor Roosevelt’s face on the wall of the heavily traveled, second-floor indoor bridge that connects the University’s landmark Auditorium Building to its new 32-story Wabash Building on the Chicago Campus. Email pitches and social media posts also are being used in an attempt to get as many members of the Roosevelt community as possible to vote for Eleanor Roosevelt at www.womenon20s.org. Student leaders also will be reaching out to peers at other area universities in an attempt to expand the reach of the campaign.
Women on 20s voting officially ends at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on May 10, which is Mother’s Day. The organization’s representatives then are expected to make a recommendation to President Obama to direct the nation’s Treasury Department to put the woman with most votes on the $20 in place of President Andrew Jackson. Several bills calling for a woman to be placed on the nation’s currency also have been filed in Congress, including one introduced recently by Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Chicago.
“In 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated Roosevelt University. This is a wonderful way for us to honor her while we celebrate our 70th anniversary,” said Roosevelt University Historian Lynn Weiner, who has been encouraging faculty and staff at the University to vote for the former first lady. “We have the capacity to produce a lot of votes and to make a difference in this national campaign,” she said.
Source: www.roosevelt.edu
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