Faculty Senate
Millersville University
17 February 2004
RE: Emerita Status for Sally Woodward-Miller
In accordance with the Governance Manual, Section 5 and Local Option Agreements, I write to request the Senate confer emerita status for our late colleague, Sally Woodward-Miller. Professor Woodward-Miller taught at Millersville in the English Department from 1989 to December 2003. At the time of her death, she was scheduled to return to teach Journalism and Composition courses in the Spring 2004 semester.
Prof. Woodward-Miller made distinctive contributions to both the English Department and the campus at-large. In addition, she was a vital and active member of the arts community in Lancaster, where she represented Millersville University.
Prof. Woodward-Miller faithfully and expertly taught freshman writing for her entire thirteen years at Millersville. In the last two years, she also taught Journalism courses, filling for a full-time faculty member on medical leave. Since Prof. Woodward-Miller had written for all three Lancaster newspapers and owned her own communications company, she was a natural to bring to the MU students in "Fundamentals of Journalism" the knowledge and experience associated with a professional career as a journalist. In her composition courses, Prof. Woodward-Miller incorporated service-learning and community based writing projects, before they were adopted campus-wide, and her courses emphasized excellence in writing and in speaking. She was passionate about student learning and gave our students her full attention and the full breathe of her experiences as a writer. Within the English Department, Prof. Woodward-Miller served on the steering committee for the 1992 annual meeting of the East Central American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies conference and she was an active member of the department's composition committee. She was also supportive of Women's Studies, and attended their general meetings.
As a scholar, Prof. Woodward-Miller was known for her interest in women writers and in using writing for therapeutic purposes. She founded the Susannah Wright Society for the Study of Pennsylvania Women Writers and she sponsored and was a professional trained writing therapist.
Prof. Sally Woodward-Miller was a beloved and a respected colleague who brought warmth, humor and insight to all her tasks. She was a dedicated and wonderful teacher who loved language and literature. Therefore, I, on behalf of the MU English faculty, request she be honored with the title "Adjunct Professor, Emerita."
The English Department completed its three-fourths majority vote on March 16, 2004, and supports this request.
Yours sincerely,
Beverly Schneller, Chair
Department of English