jim-miller-yearbook
About a decade ago one of my advisees, Laura, a history major, dropped by my office for a chat just days before her May graduation. She spoke very excitedly about securing her credential and entering the public schools. Not long into our conversation she mentioned that one of her favorite professors, Jim Miller, played a key role in helping her decide on a teaching career. This did not surprise me because I had heard numerous students make such comments over the previous ten years I had taught at Chapman. Laura further remarked that she was taking Professor Miller the last time he was teaching his fabled course on the American West and was quite surprised that I was in the course the very first time he offered the class in the spring of 1962!

In fact, Jim had been teaching at Chapman a number of years before I arrived on campus as a junior transfer student in 1961 – and not just history! As many of you know, Jim presented classes in at least seven departments on campus, mostly in the very early years of his nearly five decades as a Chapman professor. In addition to these myriad assignments Jim taught night school for many years in San Pedro and in the federal prison at nearby Terminal Island. He was the consummate work horse who genuinely loved every second in the classroom!

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Professor Jim Miller leads an alumni group on a campus tour during homecoming in 2002



It was quite sad for those of us in the History Department to see Jim’s health decline over the past two years. The spring in that familiar step, bounding across campus, was a sight that all of us missed. Jim, aside from being a former Marine, was a true American patriot in every sense of the word. (I smiled a little last week thinking how appropriate it was that he passed on Veteran’s Day!) Just as with Laura and generations of other students, Jim had an enormous impact on my formative years of undergraduate education. He had a unique and endearing way of making history come alive and I, along with so many others, sensed that history was a vital, living thing under Jim’s tutelage and patient mentoring. He and other master teachers at Chapman in those days inspired me to enter the university teaching profession, for which I am eternally grateful.

We have lost a Chapman Legend, but we can be thankful that Professor Jim Miller is now safe in the arms of his beloved “Momma!”

Bill Cumiford

Class of 1963
Associate Professor of History
Department of History
Chapman University