2/27/97 Contact: Alden Waitt, Ohio University, 614/593-4687

ATHENS, Ohio -- The Ohio University Women's Studies Program will collaborate with a local organization and the Department of English to sponsor events in observance of Women's History Month in March.

A fund-raising dinner to benefit a women's history book club is scheduled for Saturday (March 1), and a free, public presentation on contemporary women writers will be held on the Athens campus Monday (March 3).

Women's Studies will co-sponsor the Women Education Business Support (WEBS) Fourth Annual Women's History Dinner beginning at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd on University Terrace. Tickets are $15, or $7 for students, seniors and those who request a reduced price, and will be available at the door. Proceeds will go toward the purchase of books of interest to women for local school libraries.

Several presentations are planned during the event, including one by Director of Women's Studies Aileen Hall, who will discuss the Ohio University Women's Studies Program. Joanne Prisley, director of the Athens County Historical Society and Museum, will discuss women of early Athens County; local residents Kathy Devecka and Amy Abercrombie will give a dramatic presentation on wives of Athens County coal miners; and Mary Morgan, a coordinator of the FORUS intergenerational women's forum, will discuss the WEBS Center.

The Ohio University English Department will join forces with Women's Studies to sponsor a speech by Martine Watson Brownley, Goodrich C. White Professor of English at Emory University, titled "The Romance of Politics: Contemporary Women Writers and the State." The lecture will be held at 7 p.m. Monday in Scripps Hall's Anderson Auditorium.