Thiel College announces initiative to endow chair in name and honor of David Miller

GREENVILLE, Pa.-- Thiel College President Troy D. VanAken recently announced the launch of a new initiative to raise $1 million to endow an academic chair in name and in honor of David Miller, professor of economics and business administration and Norman P. Mortensen Chair of Economics.

Miller is a 1961 graduate of Thiel College and has been teaching at the school since 1963. He is the longest serving professor in Thiel College’s 148-year history. Miller has had the largest faculty student advising load for the last 20 years, covering nearly 10 percent of the 1,100 students on campus. He has taught more classes, advised more students and served more years than any professor in Thiel College’s history.

President VanAken said, “The naming of a chair for an individual is one of the highest honors a college can bestow. This recognition is a lasting and powerful affirmation of Professor Miller’s unquestioned integrity, dedication and long-standing connection to Thiel College’s mission. This is the first time Thiel College has undertaken an effort like this to fund an academic chair and it is fitting that is for a one-of-a-kind person like Professor Miller.”

Miller earned his MBA in 1962 from the University of Pittsburgh where he was awarded a full fellowship. Miller has served as the director of the Haller Enterprise Institute since its inception as the Thiel Enterprise Institute. He is the first professor to hold an endowed academic chair at Thiel; is the 1990 recipient of the Sears-Roebuck Teaching Excellence and Campus Leadership Award; and in October 1999, he received the Service to Thiel Award from the Thiel Alumni Association.

Miller and his wife, Ruth, have two adult children and live in Jamestown, Pa.

Photographed above: Professor Miller, Ruth Miller, Annette VanAken and President VanAken.