Penn State announced this week that Linda Patterson Miller was named the 2011-12 Penn State laureate, succeeding current laureate Robin Becker.

Miller, a professor of English at Penn State Abington, is the fourth laureate and the first to come from a campus other than University Park.

The Penn State laureate is a full-time faculty member who is assigned half-time for one academic year to serve as the University laureate. The laureate is selected by President Graham Spanier on the recommendation of a review committee. During the year, the individual selected appears regularly at university events at University Park, the Commonwealth Campuses, and throughout the state at other community events. The laureate is meant to bring an enhanced level of social, cultural, artistic, and human perspective and awareness to a broad array of audiences.

Miller’s academic interest is the Lost Generation — that debaucherous literary period chronicled in books like Ernest Hemingway’s A Movable Feast. Miller also chairs the Editorial Review Board for “The Cambridge Edition of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway,” a project based at Penn State that will eventually see the multivolume publication of a massive cache of Papa’s correspondence. The first volume comes out this fall, and odds are it will be a big deal — won’t hurt that Penn State’s First Lady is also a major player in the effort.

You can find out more about Miller on Penn State Live.