William Lee Miller

William Lee Miller (April 21, 1926 – May 27, 2012) was an American journalist, academic, and historian who taught in the University of Virginia's religious studies department for 17 years, and remained affiliated with the university after his 1999 retirement.

Early life and education Miller was the son of a Presbyterian minister, and was born in Bloomington, Indiana. Due to his father's profession, Miller grew up in various parts of the United States, including Laramie, Wyoming, Hutchinson, Kansas, and Lincoln, Nebraska. He earned undergraduate degrees from the University of Nebraska and Yale University, and a Ph.D. from Yale.

He later worked in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, writing messages to be used by President Lyndon Johnson.

Academic work Miller taught at Smith College, Yale University, and Indiana University He described his position in a 1992 Booknotes interview: "I'm not an historian. I'm a political ethicist. My present title is professor of ethics and institutions, which doesn't fit any department, but it fits me."

In the same interview, Miller acknowledged the influence of Reinhold and Richard Niebuhr on his thought and work:

"Reinhold Niebuhr was the greatest -- well, let's put it in the largest way, and then if you make me do it, I'll take it back -- the greatest American political thinker of the 20th century... ...He was a big influence on me, the reason I studied the things I did, and he would be my mentor -- my chief mentor... ...I didn't study directly with him; I studied at Yale under his brother, a man called Richard Niebuhr, who was kind of the Mycroft Holmes to his Sherlock Holmes -- you know, the Sherlock Holmes story, the one who's in the background and is even smarter than his well known brother. But Reinhold was down in New York, and we collaborated in many organizations. I wrote for his magazine. I knew him in various Ford Foundation things and then in Santa Barbara for a while."

At the time of his retirement from the University of Virginia, Miller was Commonwealth Professor of Political and Social Thought, and after his retirement until his death he was the White Burkett Miller Center Scholar in Residence, Professor Emeritus.