Plame, Quindlen to speak (aimed at empowering women and girls as leaders)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2007/10/21/plame_quindlen_to_speak/

By Kathy McCabe | October 21, 2007

Valerie Plame Wilson, a former CIA agent, and Anna Quindlen, a Newsweek columnist, will speak at separate events this week aimed at empowering women and girls as leaders in business and local communities.

On Thursday, Quindlen will speak at the fifth annual luncheon for The Women's Fund of Essex County at the Peabody Marriott. On Friday, Plame will be the keynote speaker at the Women's and Professional Development Conference, organized by Bay Path College, at the Sheraton Ferncroft in Danvers.

Bay Path, a private college in Longmeadow, is opening a satellite campus at Burlington High School, offering Saturday classes for women with an emphasis on business education. The conference was planned to launch the new campus, where graduate courses were due to start yesterday. Undergraduate classes start Nov. 3.

"We're not the same old, same old night school program," Carol A. Leary, the college president, said in an interview. "We really are believers in what we can do for women, but it has to be on their own terms. A Saturday program is much easier for them to earn a degree."

The Danvers conference will focus on the theme of resilience. Workshops will address key issues facing working women: balancing work and life, stress management, leadership and communication.

Plame will deliver the keynote address, speaking on the challenges she has faced since her covert identity as a CIA agent was revealed by Washington Post columnist Robert Novak in 2003. The disclosure sparked a grand jury investigation into the leak, which resulted in the prosecution and conviction of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby was found guilty of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to federal investigators during the probe. President Bush later commuted his 30-month prison sentence.

FULL story at link.