Miami University

Shriver caps 51 years of teaching with book on Miami

10/16/1998

OXFORD, Ohio -- Folks familiar with Miami University might say a book

based on the lectures of Dr. Phillip R. Shriver is long overdue.

However, those same folks are likely to forgive Shriver, Miami president

emeritus and professor of history, for waiting until 1998 to publish Miami

University: A Personal History.

Seems Shriver's been busy in the classroom--for the past five decades.

In that time, thousands of students, from the first wave of the G.I. Bill to

Generation X, passed through Shriver's classroom --if they were lucky. His

course on the history of Miami is notoriously standing room only, known as much

for the depth of the lecture material as for the inimitable appeal of the

lecturer himself.

Fortunately, Shriver's lectures will be available soon as Miami University:

A Personal History.

"The history of Miami is a great American success story," said William

Pratt, professor emeritus of English and editor of the book. "Phil Shriver, as

both a former president of Miami and a professor of history, is the one person

who should be telling it. The stamp of his personality is on every page."

Shriver, a Cleveland native, earned his bachelor's degree at Yale University

in 1943, served in the Navy from 1943-46, earned a master's in history from

Harvard University in 1946 and earned a doctorate in American history from

Columbia University in 1954. He was president of Miami from 1965-81.

Shriver has taught at least one class a year for the past 51 years--including

the years during which he was Miami president and the years when the Vietnam

War incited student unrest at dozens of universities, including Miami. Fall

semester 1998, he says, will be his last in the classroom.

Miami University: A Personal History, published by the Miami

University Press, is scheduled to arrive by Homecoming Weekend at the

university bookstore (located, appropriately enough, in the Shriver Center) and

at Follett's Miami Co-Op Bookstore in Oxford. It will cost $15.