 |
| Dr. Mahlon Miller addresses the audience during his last visit to the Union College campus for the 2005 inauguration of President Ed de Rosset. The former Union president died on Dec. 19 after a long illness. |
Union Mourns Loss of Longest-Serving President
Mahlon Miller, the longest-serving president in Union College’s 130-year history, has died.
Union learned recently that the former president passed away Dec. 19 in Tempe, Ariz., where he and wife Laura moved in 1995. A memorial service was held Jan. 13 at the Friendship Village Retirement Community in Tempe.
“I only had the privilege to meet Dr. Miller once,” said Edward D. de Rosset, Union’s president. “However, I did have occasion to speak with him by phone. These conversations were never short; his love for and commitment to Union were front and center. His Union experience and memories were the love of his life.”
Though Miller could only watch Union from a distance and was rarely able to return to campus from Tempe, he remained interested in the college and its progress. In recent years, Miller corresponded regularly with the President’s Office. He offered feedback, shared ideas and was interested in hearing news of changes on campus and in southeast Kentucky.
“I rejoice in the change—rejoice for the region and rejoice for the college,” Miller wrote in July 2009. “I am thrilled by what it has become.”
His final visit to the Union campus was in 2005, when he joined other former presidents to attend President de Rosset’s inauguration. Miller told the new president that the inauguration ceremony would be his last trip east, and that he wanted to see campus one last time and be part of the ceremony. He also used that visit as an opportunity to see the tunnel in Middlesboro and other improvements to Highway 25E.
Miller was named Union’s 14th president in February 1959 and served through 1982. He first came to Union in 1955, when asked by then-president Conway Boatman to serve as an assistant to the president. When he accepted the position, Miller was working toward a doctorate in theology as one of the first group of Fulbright students in Germany. He earned a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and did graduate work at the Case Institute of Technology and at Western Reserve University. At Drew University, Miller earned a bachelor’s degree in divinity and completed a master’s in sacred theology.
Miller’s tenure at Union was marked by significant expansion and change in the physical plant, enrollment, and academic programs, and by national-scale changes in higher education and American culture that influenced the college’s development in key areas.
Miller led a master planning and building effort that dramatically altered and improved the campus. He added desperately-needed housing for faculty through the creation of College Park, including Langford Apartments. Robsion Arena, the Patridge Campus Center, a new section of College Courts, Lakeside Hall, Lakeside Athletics Complex and the Mahlon Miller Science Center were all constructed during Miller’s presidency. Significant renovations were completed for Pfeiffer Hall, Baldwin Place, Tye House and Centennial Hall. Smaller-scale updates such as parking lots, concrete walkways, playing fields and courts, and landscaping rounded-out the transition from a campus with a few key buildings to one that could better accommodate a growing campus community.
Most of the physical plant changes were made early in Miller’s tenure, leading college historians E.S. Bradley and W.G. Marigold to write that “the campus was literally transformed by the projects undertaken during the 1960s.”
Academically, Miller led Union through a robust period of “euphoric expansion.” Faculty doubled and tripled in several departments. Student enrollment grew considerably. In 1959, for the first time in its history, a Union student was awarded a nationally-recognized scholarship: the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. At least three other students were named Wilson Fellows during Miller’s presidency, and one received the coveted Fulbright Fellowship. Miller believed in the importance of travel as a means to gain cultural experience and exposure. Under his leadership, a large number of faculty and students took advantage of off-campus learning through Junior Year Abroad, Summer Study Abroad, the Washington Semester, trips to New York, and several other travel-study initiatives. Another success for the Miller administration was the creation of the graduate education program. Miller launched the program in 1960 to meet the needs of regional teachers. It has since grown to include other academic disciplines and celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
Miller’s leadership extended to the broader higher education community and to area groups and organizations working in the War on Poverty era in the Appalachian region. He became the first chairperson of the Mid-Appalachian College Council, formed in 1966 by 12 colleges in Appalachia. When federal legislation created the local Economic Opportunity Council (now KCEOC), Miller was named the first chairperson and became heavily involved in related community action programs. He led the effort to lease college property to the City of Barbourville for one dollar annually for the purpose of creating a recreational space, now known as the Barbourville Water Park. Miller also allowed the city to use college land for public housing for senior citizens.
The second-half of Miller’s presidency was focused on national changes that affected campus culture, enrollment, finances and the nature of Union’s academic program. A nationwide decline in college enrollment included Union, as did a change in the profile of the student body. Miller led Union through a period of adaptation that saw a dramatic increase in the part-time and non-traditional student interested more in vocational studies than in the traditional academic program that flourished in the 60s. He continued to support the new graduate program, which exceeded all expectations in growth. It was Miller’s creation of the graduate program, in fact, that allowed Union to weather the traditional student decline in the 70s. In 1978, in spite of national trends, Union reached the highest head-count in its history with 1,190 students. That number was not surpassed until 2005.
“Dr. Miller’s Union legacy is remarkable,” said President de Rosset. “He served across eras of large ideas, high passions, discovery and revelation of our region’s need and potential.” Miller’s tenure “greatly increased Union’s profile, reach, capacity and field of service. There are programs begun during his 20-plus years that continue to inform and fuel programs today.”
President de Rosset said that much of Miller’s estate has been bequeathed to Union, with instructions to use the gift to “assist students at Union who need financial aid.”
Miller’s wife Laura left her own legacy at Union. She founded the Trustee Spouses group (originally known as the Trustee Wives Organization), which fosters joint projects among the spouses of Union trustees. The group still exists and, over the years, has been responsible for a series of campus improvement projects. Laura was called “a gracious hostess” and “one of Union’s greatest assets” by Marigold. Before Miller was named president of Union, Laura served as a substitute teacher in Knox County. She held a bachelor’s degree in education from Rutgers University. Miller and Laura enjoyed 64 years of marriage before she died in 2006.
In letters to President de Rosset and his staff, Miller shared his grief at Laura’s loss and his concern that his life was near its end as well. In that time, he turned his focus back to Union and requested any information the college could send.
“Union College was my life and remains my life,” he wrote. “Every brochure or other piece of literature I receive from Union is devoured as if I was still there.”
“Union will always be in my blood.”
