The program will open Thursday night on campus with a talk by ABC News White House correspondent Ann Compton.
Springside head Priscilla G. Sands said the idea of a speaker series meshed with the school's mission of fostering leadership skills of girls and young women.
She said an alumnae committee put the series together.
The talks, Sands said, will give students, parents, graduates and the public "a peek into the lives of exceptional women."
She expects several speakers, including Compton, who has four children, to discuss juggling career and family.
Compton, a member of the Journalism Hall of Fame in Washington, was the first female correspondent assigned to cover the White House full time. During her broadcast career, she has traveled throughout the world with six presidents. Her news team won an Emmy and a Peabody Award for its 9/11 coverage.
Other speakers scheduled for the Springside series this spring are Ilana DeBare, author of Where Girls Come First: The Rise, Fall, and Surprising Revival of Girls' Schools, May 5; and Gutmann, Penn's president-elect, May 18.
The series will continue in the fall with talks by von Stade, an internationally renowned mezzo-soprano; O'Connor; Wendy Mogel, a clinical psychologist who wrote The Blessing of a Skinned Knee; and Wellesley College president Diana Chapman Walsh, a 1962 Springside graduate.
Dates for the fall talks have not been announced.
Contact staff writer Martha Woodall at 215-854-2789 or martha.woodall@phillynews.com.
If You Go
All lectures are scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. in the upper school auditorium at Springside, 8000 Cherokee St., with refreshments at 7 p.m.
The talks are free and open to the public, but reservations are suggested. Reservations can be made by calling 215-247-7200, Ext. 6666, or through the school's Web site, www.springside.org/rsvp_125.html.
