October Quarterly Meeting and Luncheon
The Philadelphia Bar Association will celebrate women as leaders at its October Quarterly Meeting and Luncheon on Thursday, Oct. 21, when it welcomes Dr. Amy Gutmann, the new president of the University of Pennsylvania, as its keynote speaker; and Judge Marjorie O. Rendell of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, as the recipient of the Association�s 2004 Sandra Day O�Connor Award. Dr. Gutmann began her duties as President of the University of Pennsylvania in the summer of 2004, following her tenure as Provost of Princeton University, where she also served as the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and the University Center for Human Values. She is President of the American Society of Political and Legal Philosophy, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the W. E. B. Du Bois Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and a Fellow of the National Academy of Education.
Gutmann is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the Centennial Medal from Harvard University, the President's Distinguished Teaching Award from Princeton University, the Bertram Mott Award, the Ralph J. Bunche Award, the North American Society for Social Philosophy Book Award and the Gustavus Myers Human Rights Award.
She has served as Princeton's Dean of the Faculty and as Academic Advisor to the President. She was the founding Director of the University Center for Human Values. She serves on many editorial boards, the Board of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and as Executive Committee Chair of the Princeton University Press.
Gutmann is an accomplished and widely recognized author in the fields of political philosophy, practical ethics and education. Her most recent books include Why Deliberative Democracy? and Identity in Democracy.
Judge Marjorie O. Rendell of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is the recipient of the Philadelphia Bar Association's 2004 Sandra Day O'Connor Award. Judge Rendell began her illustrious career at the law firm of Duane, Morris & Heckscher, where she became the firm's second woman partner. She was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in 1994 and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1997.
An active member of the Philadelphia community throughout, she is a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, Chair of the Board of Overseers of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Nursing and a board member of Penn Medicine. Additionally, she serves on the Trustees Council of Penn Women and the university's External Affairs and Neighborhood Initiatives Committees. She helped to found Avenue of the Arts, Inc. in 1993, developing Philadelphia's Broad Street into a world-class cultural and performing arts district. She also served as Vice Chair of the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.
Judge Rendell established a Philadelphia Reads/Power Partners Chapter at the federal courthouse, and leads the Power Partners Program, allowing two public school classrooms to visit the federal courthouse to receive weekly one-on-one reading in approximately 20 federal judges' chambers. Judge Rendell is married to Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell.
Also at the luncheon, the Justice William J. Brennan Award will be presented to a member of the bench.