Press Releases

June 24, 1996
Dr. WAYNE C. MILLER, ADVOCATE OF LIBERAL ARTS EDUCATION, NAMED DEAN FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS AT Southampton College

Contact: Jane Finalborgo
(516) 287-8313

Dr. Wayne C. Miller has been appointed Dean for Academic Affairs at Southampton College of Long Island University. The announcement was made this week by Dr. Michael E. Arons, Long Island University's Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Dr. Miller comes to Southampton from the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), where since 1990 he has served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

He is an advocate of liberal arts education who is expected to help the Southampton College faculty advance the long-term plan for academic excellence it developed this past winter. The plan commits the College to building curriculum strengths around local needs and local resources, focusing on four "lead" programs: Marine and Environmental Science, Environmental Studies and Psychobiology, Writing, and Visual Arts.

Grants and Partnerships In his 13 years as a college administrator, Dr. Miller has helped raise millions of dollars through faculty grants and research contracts from corporations and foundations. He also has an outstanding record in building ties between educational institutions and their communities. At UAA for example, he helped develop a partnership with the M.I.T./Harvard/Mass General Hospital Consortium, Alaska Hospitals, and Alaska native organizations to bring telemedicine to rural Alaska.

Miller previously was Dean of the School of Human Sciences, Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Houston Clear Lake, and Director of Academic Telecommunications at the University of Cincinnati.

"Dr. Miller brings to Southampton College an abiding commitment to the liberal arts and sciences," said Arons. "I anticipate that his appointment will help the faculty and staff implement their plan for making Southampton College a nationally-recognized residential undergraduate liberal arts college."

In joining Long Island University, Miller is returning to an area of the country he knows well from his student days. He earned his Ph.D. in English from New York University in 1968, his Master's from Columbia in 1961, and his B.A. from St. John's in 1960.

Expert in Diversity A nationally recognized scholar in the area of diversity, Miller has written seven books on the subject. He also has been instrumental in the establishment of academic programs designed to serve minorities. At UAA he initiated the Multicultural Curriculum effort and established the Alaska Native Studies Program.

In 1980-81, Miller received a Senior Fulbright Lectureship at the University of Rome, and a Taft Foundation Fellowship.

Concurrent with his academic positions, Miller has been Chairman and CEO of his own telecommunications company (Computer Activated Video Disc, Inc.--COMVID) and an Executive Producer at WCET-TV in Cincinnati where he created and produced five different prime-time television series for PBS including Religion Today and Decision Makers: Leadership in Cincinnati.

He has been named to the Board of Directors of an International University involving the University of Magadan (Russia), Hokkaido University (Japan), and the University of Alaska. He succeeds Dr. Alvin Siegel, who has returned to full-time teaching as Professor of Chemistry.

Southampton College is one of the six campuses of Long Island University, which in the last decade has become one of the nation's ten largest private educational institutions.