Bowling Green, Ky. - Author and political activist Barbara Ehrenreich will speak at Western Kentucky University on March 2 as part of the 2005-06 Cultural Enhancement Series.

Ehrenreich’s lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. at Van Meter Auditorium. Admission is free. A book signing will follow the lecture.

Ehrenreich is perhaps most widely recognized for her exposé of welfare reform. To determine first-hand whether President Clinton’s Welfare To Work program was successful, Ehrenreich spent two years trying to support herself on the wages of unskilled workers. The result was “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America,” recipient of the Christopher Award and the Washington Monthly’s 2001 Political Book Award.

Her most recent work is “Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of American Dream” in which she explores the difficulty of white-collar workers forced to leave their jobs by corporations who are constantly searching for lower-salaried, younger workers.

Ehrenreich has a doctorate in biology from the Rockefeller University and received a Ford Foundation Award for Humanistic Perspectives on Contemporary Society in 1982. Her lecture at WKU is co-sponsored by the Women’s Studies Program’s Catherine Coogan Ward Visiting Professorship.

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For information, contact Mina Doerner at (270) 745-5204.