After more than 40 years at Penn, Almanac editor Marguerite Miller will retire at the end of this semester.
Almanac is Penn's weekly journal of record, opinion, and news for University faculty and staff. Miller had planned to retire at the end of this past spring semester, when the shock of COVID-19 was at its height, but wanted to help the publication through the tumultuous times, Penn Today reported.
Almanac began as a monthly faculty-run newsletter, but started publishing weekly for faculty and staff in the early 1970s, Penn Today reported. Karen Gaines was the first editor of the weekly publication, and Gaines trained Miller as an assistant and associate editor.
When Gaines retired in 1999, Almanac advertised nationally and received over 60 applications for the position. Miller was chosen to replace Gaines, and has been the editor since 2000.
Miller first joined Almanac’s staff while her husband was attending graduate school at Penn. She has worked under four Penn presidents, as well as one interim president. Miller told Penn Today about how operations within the Almanac have changed since times before voicemail messages, computers, and the internet.
“It’s been an incredible journey, which is probably why it hasn’t seemed like so many years in the same place,” Miller told Penn Today. “The ways we do things have evolved so dramatically.”
Miller also worked on the journal while raising her two children.
“Until I could find child-care, I came back to the office after my maternity leave with baby diapers and the whole shebang,” she told Penn Today.
In the early 1990s, Miller sat on the Board of Directors for the Caring Center, a child-care center near the University. When plans to close the center were announced while one of Miller’s children attended the Center in 1990, Miller sided with an organization of Penn staff to save the closing child care center.
Miller has served on several boards and executive committees of organizations at Penn, including the MLK Commemorative Symposium Executive Planning Committee and the University Club Board of Governors, Penn Today reported.
Miller hopes to spend more time with her family, especially her 1-year-old grandson, and she wants to continue to stay active, cook and bake, and read and write, Penn Today reported.
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