Following his service in World War II, Kenneth B. McMillen was an Associate Professor of Political Sciences at West Liberty for many years (1946-1980). McMillen’s generosity and hospitality, along with his informal manner of conducting class, were conductive to building positive relationships and enhancing the learning experience for his students. Instead of one-way lectures, his class hours were filled with stories, lively discussions and questions. Examining current events and connecting them with history often led to compelling conversations about world politics.
An initial gift was given in 1986 by Mrs. McMillen to start a fund in her husband’s memory. It was very important to her to honor his legacy to West Liberty. The fund originally awarded scholarships to West Liberty students. With the help of their son, David McMillen, and John Hoppers, a WLU alum and former student of McMillen the fund has been transformed to provide WLU’s first ever endowed faculty position, which will carry on the legacy of excellence in teaching that McMillen exemplified. With this vision in mind, other major gifts have been contributed by WesBanco and Peter Freeman, a former History Professor and friend of Kenneth McMillen.
Requirements
The Kenneth B. McMillen Endowed Chair has been created to provide a stipend for faculty members within the certain disciplines who meet the below criteria and who apply to become the endowed chair for a four-year period.
Minimum Requirements for Consideration:
- preference will be given to faculty in the following academic areas: Political Science, History, and Geography; other academic areas will be considered only if there are no eligible applications from faculty in those areas. Other academic areas that may be considered in such cases include Philosophy and Sociology and other liberal arts fields as deemed appropriate by the committee
- the chair will be awarded to a tenured professor with an active research agenda
- applicants’ proposed scholarly research project(s) for the four-year period should result in an academic publication or similar outcome and a public lecture or presentation
- preference will be given to proposals that invite student collaboration or that promise to benefit WLU students by expanding the current knowledge base in the field
- the faculty stipend will include both research and programming funds, and the expectation will be for the McMillen Chair to actively engage in promoting research and learning at WLU during the term of service. Course teaching loads will be reduced to support the Chair’s research initiatives