The UC Davis African Continuum announced Beverly Guy-Sheftall as the speaker for the inaugural Leslie Campbell Legacy Speakers Series, a Principles of Community event set for next week.

Guy-Sheftall is the Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women's Studies and founding director of the Women's Research and Resource Center at Spelman College in Atlanta. She writes on African American and women's studies.

Campbell, the speakers series namesake, worked at UC Davis for 30 years, mostly in Undergraduate Admissions. She retired as interim director in 2004 and died the next year of breast cancer. A memorial fund supports the annual speaker series, said Arnette Bates, director of the Educational Opportunity Program, who worked with Campbell in Undergraduate Admissions for many years.

"She was a good-hearted person who touched the lives of many people on campus and in the community," Bates said. "She was a champion for educational opportunity, an advocate for students from underserved communities. She was a true leader."

Guy-Sheftall is scheduled to present two programs on March 11:

• "Gender Talk: Dialogue Among Sisters and Brothers" -- 12:10 p.m., Mee Room, Memorial Union.
• "Remembering Our Black Feminist Foremothers" -- 5 p.m., MU II, Memorial Union. Includes a book signing for Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women's Equality in African American Communities, co-authored by Johnnetta Betsch Cole.

Organizers said the programs are free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be served.

Sponsors include the African Continuum, African American and African Studies, Office of Campus Community Relations, Early Academic Outreach Program and the Educational Opportunity Program, the African American Faculty and Staff Association, Academic Preparation Programs, Undergraduate Admissions and Student Affairs.