PHILLIP R. SHRIVER; WILLIAM PRATT, EDITOR
1998 | 1-881163-28-8
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Miami University: A Personal History incorporates the lectures on Miami history which have been given by a former president to large classes for many years. As a complement to Walter Havinghurst’s narrative of The Miami Years—the primary source of university history ever since the Sesquicentennial Year of 1959, when it was first published—the Shriver history is a personal account, often with humorous asides, of a university rooted in the western academic tradition, which bears an Indian tribal name native to southwestern Ohio. Though the Miami name also belongs to a university in southeastern Florida, it belonged first to a small college on the American frontier (Old Miami) that developed into a major university in the nation’s heartland (New Miami).
“The history of Miami University is finally a great American success story,” says the Preface, “and Phil Shriver as both President Emeritus and Professor of History is the right one to tell it in his inimitable way.”
“There are at least four different years that can be claimed historically for the beginning of Miami University: 1792, 1809, 1811, or 1824. But I prefer not to choose any of them. Instead, I propose to go centuries back, indeed a whole millennium, to the ninth century A.D., in order to affirm that Miami University was not created in a vacuum. Miami University was created following centuries of experience in higher learning, first in Europe, then in other continents around the globe, and it was out of this long tradition of higher education that our university would emerge in 1809 by legislative charter, and then in 1824 by opening its doors and offering its first classes.”
—Phillip R. Shriver
About the Author
Dr. Phillip R. Shriver, President Emeritus and Professor of History, has degrees from Yale, Harvard, and Columbia, and honorary degrees from ten other universities. He taught at Kent State University for 18 years, serving as Professor of History and Dean of the College of Arts & Science, and continued to teach after coming to Miami as President from 1965-1981.
About the Editor
Dr. William Pratt, Professor Emeritus of English, taught in Miami’s Department of English from 1957-1998.
