ITHACA, N.Y. -- Gail Collins, the editorial page editor of The New York Times, will present the 2002 Daniel W. Kops Freedom of the Press Lecture at Cornell University Tuesday, Oct. 29, at 4:30 p.m. in the Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall. The lecture, titled "How Women Got Their Voice," is free and open to the public.

Before being appointed to her current position with The New York Times , Collins was a columnist for the Times' op-ed page from 1999 to 2001 and a member of the Times editorial board. Before joining the Times in 1995, she had been a columnist at New York Newsday and at theNew York Daily News . She also was a financial reporter for United Press International in New York.

In the 1970s, Collins was a freelance writer, a senior editor for Connecticut Magazine , regular contributor to the Times , a weekly columnist for the Connecticut Business Journal , host of a public affairs program for Connecticut Public Television, and an instructor in journalism at Southern Connecticut State College. From 1972 to 1977, she founded and operated the Connecticut State News Bureau, which provides coverage of the state capitol and Connecticut politics. When the news bureau was sold, it was the largest service of its kind in the country, with more than 30 weekly and daily newspaper clients.

The co-author of The Millennium Book andScorpion Tongues , Collins received a B.A. from Marquette University and an M.A. from the University of Massachusetts. She currently is writing a history of American women.

The Kops Freedom of the Press Fellowship Program was established in 1990 by Daniel W. Kops, a 1939 graduate of Cornell and a former editor of the Cornell Daily Sun , to bring distinguished speakers to Ithaca and Cornell, annually, to discuss issues relating to freedom of the press.