The campus community mourns the passing of Marilyn Mumford, 90, who died Saturday, Jan. 25. Marilyn retired after nearly 41 years of service to Bucknell as a professor of English. She is remembered as a vibrant colleague in the English department and in the women’s studies program, cherished by a generation of women and gay colleagues for whom she broke new ground in emerging academic fields. Many will never forget her mentorship — laced with equal parts acerbic wit and immense kindness — during their first days on campus.

I encourage you to visit our In Memoriam site to share personal notes of sympathy and remembrance with others.

On behalf of our entire University community, I extend our deepest sympathies to Marilyn’s family, as well as to all who knew her at Bucknell.

John C. Bravman
President

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Dr. Marilyn R. “Mardi” Mumford, who resided recently in Mount Pleasant, SC, passed away on January 25, 2025, aged 90 years old.

Mardi was born in New Jersey on February 18, 1934, to Robert E. Mumford and Margaret Lynde Mumford. Her hometown was Westfield NJ. Mardi was an active Girl Scout (and later worked for the organization). In 1956 she graduated from Wilson College in Chambersburg PA, attained her Master’s Degree in 1959 from Bucknell University in Lewisburg PA, and received her Ph.D. in English from Penn State University. Between 1959 and 2000, Mardi taught at Bucknell. After marrying (later divorced), she remained an instructor for 14 years due to a rule that spouses were not both to be employed at the University; as a woman Mardi was the one whose career was set back by the policy. Nonetheless she earned the Lindbeck award for Distinguished Teaching, was promoted to assistant professor in 1974, received tenure in 1977, and between 1996 and 1999 was Presidential Professor, an honorary position that recognizes faculty for outstanding achievement.

A talented lecturer, Mardi inspired many who remembered her as a “wonderfully demanding professor.” She required memorization of Chaucer’s writings in the original middle English and graded Bucknellians on their pronunciation. Mardi also held medieval style banquets in her backyard as a way to engage with her students. They recalled her “fantastic,” course on Black Women Writers and meeting several of the authors at a dinner party at her home. Feminist pedagogy, queer theory, children’s literature and women in film were among Mardi’s other teaching and research interests. Her creative work included poetry, fiction, personal essays and photography. She twice served as co-director of the university’s Race/Gender Resource Center, and led undergraduates abroad during the Bucknell-in-London Summer School Program. After retiring Mardi served as Poet in the Schools for fifth graders in Milton PA to teach them the music of poetry; their work was so good she helped publish two collections.

In 1979, Mardi helped to save Wilson College, her beloved alma mater. The board of trustees had decided to close the historic women’s college. Mardi helped lead the determined alumnae, students, faculty, and employees who sued the trustees and won. She left her job at Bucknell for 3 years, serving as Provost of External Affairs at Wilson. During this time, she created The Alumnae Student Contract (TASC), a program that provides annual funds for student expenses. Wilson colleagues told Mardi, “You, more than anyone else, have made Wilson come alive again, through your energetic dedication, unfailing optimism, and real vision. More than that, you have inspired each of us to do our best always.”

Mardi published fiction, poetry, and essays. She co-edited and contributed a critical essay to That Great Sanity: Critical Essays on May Sarton (U of Mich Press, 1992). In 1993, her essay, “A Feminist Prolegomenon for the Study of Hildegard of Bingen,” appeared in Gender, Culture and the Arts: Women the Arts and Society. Mardi published poems and short stories in The Journal of General Education, Icon, Canto, Forms, The Red Wheelbarrow, The Healing Muse and other journals. In 2012, Mardi self-published a collection of primarily humorous essays and one children’s story, entitled Keeping Most of Our Marbles in Play, which treated such subjects as the challenges of aging and the way laughter can nourish the spirit.

Mardi loved nothing better than lively, witty conversation and delighted everybody with her vivid stories (including childrens’ bedtime stories). In her 1988 chronicle, After the Stroke, the poet and essayist May Sarton recalled sharing a bottle of champagne with Mardi and a mutual friend: “Karen, Marilyn and I had a splendid talk about everything under the sun.” Mardi leaves many behind who will miss her humor, intellect, hospitality and fire, including her children Geoff and Tim Carens and their respective spouses Genevieve Butler and Elizabeth Van Pelt, as well as her siblings Nancy Mulvey, Shirley Ferguson, and Richard Mumford, two grandchildren, Maddy Carens and Ben Carens, and numerous other relatives and friends. Her younger brother, Robert Mumford Jr, passed away in 2022. A fitting epitaph for Mardi is one which comes from her longtime friend and fellow Wilson College alum, the late Kathleen Torpy, who fondly recalled thinking to herself upon meeting Mardi for the first time, “Who is that feisty, radical woman?”

A gathering of friends is scheduled May 10th at 5 pm at the Hildreth-Mirza Hall, 760 Fraternity Road at Bucknell.