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David Miller Named Mississippi College’s Distinguished Professor of the Year


David Miller

An insightful thinker, an incredible scholar and well-respected English teacher at Mississippi College for more than two decades, David Miller received accolades as MC’s Distinguished Professor of the Year.

Announced at the Christian university’s spring commencement on May 11, the prestigious award surprised the popular professor who’s well-versed on British and American literature.

“I appreciate the honor,” Miller said. “I feel blessed to be among such a devoted and hard-working faculty as we have at Mississippi College.”

Mississippi College, he said, “is an institution that’s focused on teaching and service to others.”

Faculty leaders say the award is well-deserved for Miller, chairman of the university’s Honors Council and a stellar educator for 20-plus years.

During his tenure on the Clinton campus, “Dr. Miller has frequently been recognized as one of the university’s top teachers by his students and colleagues,” says Jonathan Randle, chairman of the English Department.

Attend one of Miller’s classes, and visitors will quickly see why he ranks among the very best.

“He possesses rare gifts which make him a consummate teacher: he can challenge – sometimes to a maddening degree – our preconceived notions and comfortable truths,” Randle said. “He can inspire us to want to learn more about subjects in which we thought there was nothing more to learn. He can provoke us to lay hold of truth, wherever it may be found.”

The Mississippi College English Department has reaped the benefits of his loyalty, hard work and passion for his subject over the years. “Mississippi College is lucky to call him one of our own,” Randle said.

Mississippi College undergraduates have been impressed with professor Miller's excellence in the classroom and his love for his students.

“Some of my best classroom memories at MC have been in Dr. Miller's class,” said MC senior Micheal Walley. “From being given thought-provoking questions to being treated to a performance of literature on Halloween, Dr. Miller’s class engaged and inspired me to be the best I could be.”

Walley says the award for the English professor is well-deserved. “We are so blessed to have his passion, his knowledge and his presence at Mississippi College.”

Miller graduated summa cum laude graduate at 3,400-student Nyack College that’s known as New York’s Christian college. Founded in 1882 in New York City as a training school for missionaries, the school bills itself as the first Bible college in North America. The Mississippi resident also received a master’s degree and doctorate from Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

Traveling, cooking, writing and reading are some of the things he truly enjoys doing in his spare time. During a recent trip to Italy, the professor made it a learning experience as he soaked up a great deal of information about the beginning of the Renaissance. He developed an appreciation of some of the great mosaics at cathedrals in Siena during his visit in Europe.

Miller succeeds longtime modern languages teacher Emily Fokeladeh as the distinguished professor of the year at the Baptist-affiliated university. English professor Kerri Jordan was among others on the Clinton campus receiving the award in recent years.

Four of the last five distinguished professors selected at Mississippi College have come from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Miller noted. “We remain committed to the university’s mission of stimulating intellectual development.”