Members of women's groups from across campus will gather tonight in the Lyman Common room to kick off the Radcliffe Union of Students' (RUS) First Annual Women's Initiative.

The three-day series of events involving women's groups starts on the same evening that Associate Dean of the College Karen E. Avery '87 plans to address student concerns about the Ann Radcliffe Trust in a "town meeting" open to all students.

RUS published the initiative's schedule of events in a purple-covered packet distributed to the Houses. The packet includes a comprehensive list of campus women's groups and a ballot inviting students to vote on what future course RUS should take in light of Radcliffe College's merger with Harvard.

Officially, RUS no longer has any students of its own to govern. Without funds from the now defunct $5 term bill fee charged to undergraduate women, the future of RUS seemed tentative at best.

But in organizing the initiative--something they say plan to do every year--RUS asserts itself as a group that is not going to leave campus quietly.

"RUS will definitely be around in the coming years," said Kathryn B. Clancy '01, co-chair of RUS. "We might have to change our name, but we will keep Radcliffe no matter what."

On the first page of the women's initiative pamphlet, RUS says: "With the merger of Harvard and Radcliffe, the issues of undergraduate women have been largely ignored."

The pamphlet goes on to say that the RUS initiative will be a "consciousness-raising effort to bring issues of gender to the forefront of campus discussion."