Women studies specialist and author Susan M. Shaw will present the 2011 Marie NeSmith Fowler lecture at Samford University Tuesday, Feb. 22, at 10 a.m. in Reid Chapel. The public is invited. Her topic will be “Living Like Weasels: Passion, Risk, Vocation and Your Future.”

Dr. Shaw is professor of women studies at Oregon State University, where she is transitional director of the School of Language, Culture and Society. She was most recently director of OSU’s women studies department and the difference, power and discrimination program.

Books she has written or co-authored include Women Worldwide: Transnational Feminist Perspectives on Women (McGraw-Hill 2010) and God Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home and Society (University Press of Kentucky 2008).

She is a writer and frequent speaker on many topics related to Southern Baptists, feminism and women.

A graduate of Berry College in Rome, Ga., she holds master’s and Ph.D. degrees in religious education from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and a master’s in interdisciplinary studies from OSU.

The lecture series, sponsored by Samford’s Christian Women’s Leadership Center, honors the late Mrs. Fowler, who was a Samford graduate and longtime Hartselle, Ala., resident. She was one of the first female pharmacists and pharmacy owners in Alabama.