Dick and Joan Miller Honor the Bennets
March 29, 2007
Photo by Bill Burkhart.
Middletown — Retired Wesleyan Professor of Economics Dick Miller and his wife, Joan, have given to Wesleyan for the Bennet Initiative in honor of Doug Bennet’s leadership. This gift follows their many years of support of the Wesleyan Fund, motivated by their long and fruitful association with the university as a home and a place to nurture their academic pursuits.
Dick's eyes twinkle as he reminisces with Joan about their decades at Wesleyan since they arrived on campus in 1960. Both have made many meaningful friendships and contributions to Wesleyan over the past 47 years. Sitting in the entryway of Olin Library, the Millers talk about their three children and Joan's life at Wesleyan, recounting her membership in the Monday Club, and the 25 years worth of after-Homecoming chili-and-beer parties that the couple hosted to give returning alumni a place to go as they waited for the fraternity parties after the game, with Joan doing most of the “heavy lifting.”' In 2005, guests at these parties donated funds toward the renovation of the bells in South College; the carillon's practice keyboard bears Joan's name.
Joan worked with Robert Rosenbaum for the JSHS (Junior Science and Humanities Symposium) from 1979 to 1981, and for PIMMS (Project to Increase Mastery in Mathematics and Science) from 1981 to 1998. She also worked as docent at the Davison Art Center and earned a Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies degree from Wesleyan in 1979.
Professor Miller, the Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics Emeritus, continues to nurture connections with former students. In 2005, an anonymous alumnus endowed a scholarship in Professor Miller's name, in recognition of the profoundly positive effect that Miller's teaching and mentorship has had on his students. This year, seven alumni endowed the Richard A. Miller Summer Experience Grant, and annual summer internship for students considering business careers.
Professor Miller has taught introductory, industrial, and antitrust economics; corporate finance; microeconomic theory; and business ethics. He has held visiting positions at MIT, Yale, the University of California Berkley, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, the University of Adelaide in Australia, and the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research. He has researched and lectured on a host of topics including corporate mergers, profit rates and market concentration, gender discrimination in insurance, and the corporate scandals affecting Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, and others, as well as being the faculty mentor for the Men's Basketball team.
He retired from teaching in 2006, but maintains an office on campus, where he has been working on several scholarly publications, two of which will be published this spring.
