Alumni Receive Alumni Honoree Awards

English Alumni, Patricia Coryell ‘79, ‘84g and Kate Springer ‘09, have received Liberal Arts Alumni Honoree Awards from the Department of English, presented at the 2026 Alumni Awards Ceremony.

Patricia Coryell, recipient of the Outstanding Alumni Award, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Penn State’s Department of English in 1979 and 1984, respectively, and served as a graduate teaching assistant in undergraduate English composition. She launched her publishing career at Penn State Press, where she worked in manuscript development and marketing before spending more than two decades in college textbook publishing with firms including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Cengage and Cambridge University Press. Her work spanned K-12, higher education and global markets in medicine, nursing, English language learning, and reference and research. She later served as chief product officer for Sadlier Publishing in New York and now works as chief intellectual property officer for a global keynote speaker focused on the future of work. A Pennsylvania native who grew up in Erie, Coryell considers Central Pennsylvania home and splits her time between St. Petersburg, Florida, and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Kate Springer, recipient of the Outstanding Young Alumni Award, is a freelance travel and lifestyle journalist and editor based in Philadelphia. A Lancaster, Pennsylvania, native, she graduated from Penn State in 2009 with degrees in English and international politics. Over the past 15 years, she has built an international career covering culture, travel and dining, with a particular focus on Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. Her work has appeared in outlets including CNN Travel, Condé Nast Traveler, Time and Forbes Travel Guide, as well as alternative weeklies and airline magazines. Springer also runs a boutique copywriting agency, providing bilingual services to international brands such as Cathay Pacific, the Swire Group and Marriott International. After 10 years living and working in Hong Kong, she relocated to Philadelphia in 2021 with her husband and two children.