Margaret (Peggy) Redfield Mainwaring, ED’47, HON’85, a Penn Trustee emerita, an honorary trustee and chair emerita of the Penn Nursing School Board of Advisors, and the 1985 recipient of an honorary degree from Penn, died recently. 

Ms. Mainwaring attended Penn as an undergraduate, where she majored in math education and served on the Bennett Hall board of directors, the Christian Association, and the Houston Hall Board. She also participated in Kappa Alpha Theta, Pi Lambda Theta, and the Penn Players. She graduated from Penn’s Graduate School of Education in 1947, but continued her involvement with her alma mater. 

In 1973, Ms. Mainwaring made Penn history as the first woman elected to serve on the Board of Trustees. She again made history in 1984 by becoming the first woman vice chair of the board. She served a remarkable 29 years as a trustee, serving oin the Executive, Finance, Academic Affairs, Nominating, Alumni Affairs, and Health Affairs Committees, as well as chairing the Student Life Committee. She was a member of the boards of trustees of HUP and the Penn Presbyterian Medical Center and served on the advisory committee of the Institute of Contemporary Art, the precursor to its current board of advisors.

Ms. Mainwaring partnered with the late Claire M. Fagin, Penn’s former Interim President and former dean of the School of Nursing, to establish Penn Nursing’s board of advisors, and served as its inaugural chair, setting the stage for an era of great progress and substantial development (including the growth of the doctoral program, the creation of many key education and research programs, and a significant increase in the number of standing faculty). She was also instrumental in facilitating the renovation of the Nursing Education Building and its renaming in honor of Dr. Fagin. In recognition of her numerous contributions to Penn Nursing, Ms. Mainwaring was named a chair emerita of the board when she stepped down in 1992.

Elsewhere at Penn, Ms. Mainwaring served as president of the General Alumni Society (now Penn Alumni), the Association of Alumnae, and the Women of the Class of 1947. She helped organize the Celebration of 125 Years of Women at Penn, a special reunion in 2000 for World War II-era classes, and several reunions of the Class of 1947. She was a member of the Trustees’ Council of Penn Women and chaired the committee whose work led to the designation of the E. Craig Sweeten Alumni Center, Penn’s present-day alumni house. For her exceptional service and leadership, she received Penn’s Alumni Award of Merit in 1973 and an honorary Doctor of Laws from Penn in 1985.

In addition to contributing her time and expertise to Penn, Ms. Mainwaring provided significant financial support, both personally and through her work as a fundraising volunteer. She supported a wide range of areas at Penn, most especially the Penn Museum, where she established the Mainwaring Marketing Fund and an endowment to support archaeological science teaching. At the Penn Museum, Ms. Mainwaring and her husband Bruce endowed the Mainwaring Wing, a $17-million project that continues to provide improved access to collections, an enhanced environment for the preservation of artifacts, and study space for researchers. Her generosity and legacy reached the Penn Libraries, the Graduate School of Education, and the School of Nursing, where she established the Nightingale Professorship in Honor of Nursing Veterans. 

Ms. Mainwaring served on the boards of directors of two daycare centers and the Methacton Public School District in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in addition to serving on several other local and national foundations. For her profound contributions, she was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 2004. Ms. Mainwaring was also a consultant in the fields of education and design.

She was predeceased by her husband, Penn Trustee emeritus Bruce Mainwaring, C’47, in 2022. She is survived by her children, Susan Roberts, CW’72, G’76; Scott, C’75; and Elizabeth Daniels, CW’76; and her grandchildren.

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