The ceremony will take place from 4 to 7 p.m. in the Grand Salon of the University Student Union, near the center of the campus at 18111 Nordhoff St. in Northridge.

"The Phenomenal Women Awards is the premier event of the Women¹s Studies Department," said Elizabeth Say, interim associate dean of the College of Humanities. "We celebrate the accomplishments of wonderfully gifted women; we raise funds that support our faculty and students while we have a really good time!"

The honorees are:

• Karen Bass, founder and executive director of the Community Coalition for Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment, which has more than 2,500 members involved in five projects focusing on different areas of public policy related to the root causes of substance abuse. She has received many awards in recognition of her work on behalf of the community and serves on numerous professional advisory boards. Bass is also a clinical instructor at the University of Southern California¹s School of Medicine, Physician Assistant Program.

• Los Angeles native Wanda Coleman, a nationally recognized poet and author who was nominated for the 2001 National Book Award as well as the 2001 Pushcart Prize. Coleman is the recipient of the prestigious Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets and the Founders Literacy Achievement award from the International Black Writers and Artists. Her recent works are Mercurochome, Love-Ins With Nietzsche and Mambo Hips & Make Believe.

• Christina Gonzalez, a broadcast journalist for Fox 11 News who has received more than a dozen Emmy nominations for reporting, writing and producing. She has also written, produced and anchored award-winning specials on such diverse topics as the impact the Bosnian war has had on children, the California AIDS Ride and the conditions in refugee camps in the Sudan. Gonzalez is active as a speaker and mentor at local schools and colleges, and has received city and state commendations for her public service.

• Shonte Wright, a thermal systems engineer on the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project for Jet Propulsion Laboratory Science and Medicine. Prior to her involvement with MER, Wright was a member of the Europa Orbiter/Pluto Kuiper Thermal Team and worked on the solar thermal vacuum test of the Mars Odyssey Spacecraft at Lockeed Martin. Wright also volunteers at local schools, gives science-based presentations to elementary school kids in under-served communities, mentors and tutors high school and college students, and leads tours and other JPL-related outreach events for elementary and high school aged students.

• The Rev. Altagracia Perez who has provided spiritual leadership in her parish, Church of St. Philip the Evangelist in South Central Los Angeles, as it made the transition from a historically black church to a bilingual, multi-cultural parish. St. Philip¹s has several programs that serve the community: a food bank, a senior citizens group and an after-school program that offers tutoring, computers and cultural and recreational activities to neighborhood children. Perez has also been actively involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS since 1985, working especially among youth and Latinas. She was a member of former President Bill Clinton¹s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and served as the co-chairperson of the Racial Ethnic Population Subcommittee. She is currently a member of the board of directors of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice.

There will be a reception and a silent auction at the ceremony.

Tickets for the awards ceremony are $35 and reservations should be made by Sept. 27. Proceeds from the event will provide funds for student scholarships, program development and faculty research.

For more information, call Elizabeth Say at (818) 677-3301.