Edith Penty (right) at her retirement reception on June 14, with Dr. Katherine Hajjar, chairman of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, who joined several of Ms. Penty's colleagues in giving testimonial remarks.
Edith Penty, who has retired from the Medical College after 40 years of service as a departmental administrator, was honored by friends and colleagues at a reception held on June 14.
Ms. Penty, who began working for the Department of Anatomy in 1962 (when her name was Edith Needelman), served as administrator under six chairmen and acting chairmen. During her tenure, the department she administered changed its name twice. In 1982, it became the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, and earlier this year, its name was changed to the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology.
"I look back over the years and realize how fortunate I was to live through vast changes. For instance, when I arrived at Cornell, there were four women and no students of color in the entering class. Departmental administrators were known as secretaries. Now, Cornell is a leader in recruiting minority students, and women make up nearly 50 percent of each class. And departmental administrators get the recognition and compensation they deserve. I've been blessed to find at Cornell meaningful work and wonderful friends from here and around the world. I've often been asked how can I stay at a job 40 years. My answer, 'I love what I do,'" said Ms. Penty.
While earning the respect of her colleagues as an exceptional departmental administrator, Ms. Penty also gained distinction for her active roles in the civil-rights movement in the 1960s, the women's movement, and in fostering better relations between the U.S. and China in the 1970s and 1980s.
Edith and her husband, George Penty.
Ms. Penty was among a group of volunteers who went to Orangeburg, S.C., in 1965, under the auspices of Columbia University and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to help register black citizens to vote. She and several fellow civil-rights workers were arrested by the local police and spent a night in jail. Their arrest made the front pages of The New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune. In 1973, as a member of the U.S. China People's Friendship Association, she visited China with a group of American historians and journalists. In later years, she led a tour in China of American physicians interested in learning about how the Chinese medical system had successfully eradicated many communicable diseases.
Ms. Penty lives with her husband, George Penty, and their beloved cat, Benji, in Greenwich Village, where she is active in community service projects. In retirement, she will also have the opportunity to spend more time traveling and has plans to spend a month in Paris, after a hiking expedition in the Adirondacks.