Virginia Smith graduated from Tyrone Area High School in 1971.  In 1975 she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Bucknell University, Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude and Honors in English.   She obtained a Masters of Arts in English from Bucknell, Summa Cum Laude, 1981, and a Ph.D in English from Penn State University, Sparks Dissertation Fellowship, 1989. 

Her passion and life mission have been to teach and mentor others in their own educational quests. This has taken her from working with South Vietnamese refugees in 1975 to teaching AP high school English at Lewisburg High School, college literature, American Studies and Women’s Studies at Penn State University, University Park, and in 2008 to  founding and managing her own independent educational contracting business in Philadelphia, Chancellor Writing Services and College Consulting.  Her civic engagement has included a brief tenure at the Philadelphia Literacy Center. In addition, Virginia has won numerous teaching awards, including the College of the Liberal Arts Outstanding Teaching Award for Non-tenure Line Faculty, in 2005,  at Penn State University. 

She is the daughter of the late William P. Smith and surviving Betsy G. Smith, the sister of Judge D. Brooks Smith, the mother of Jonathan Woodring and Matthew Smith Rippon, and the enamored grandmother and besotted buddy of Adrian, Sylvia and Rosalyn Woodring. For the last fifteen years she has sung in the State College Choral Society and in Philadelphia’s Anna Crusis Women’s Choir, choral organizations enjoying national and international reputations. Virginia’s best friend, business and life partner is William L. Keeney, whom she married in 2010, himself a nationally recognized expert on teacher training and dyslexia education. Her life mantra is gratitude.