In September 1975, Provost Eliot Stellar appointed Patricia Ann McFate, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., to the senior academic administrator position of Vice-Provost for Undergraduate Studies and University Life. She was the first woman to hold the position of Vice-Provost at Penn. The University simultaneously appointed Dr. McFate to the faculty positions of Professor of Technology and Society in the College of Engineering and Applied Science and Associate Professor of Folklore, with a secondary appointment of Associate Professor of English. Prior to accepting her appointment at Penn, Dr. McFate had been Associate Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. In 1978 Dr. McFate left Penn to accept an appointment as Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, where she served in 1981. In 1998 she was Senior Scientist and Program Director at the Center for National Security Negotiations of the Science Applications International Corporation, a systems engineering company located in Santa Fe, New Mexico.