Merry MacLellan
Reporter
How long have you been considering retirement?
A little over a year.
And was that a push from, like, the academic side, or more of a personal side?
Personal. I'll be turning 65 this summer, and eight years is really they have extended my term, but contracts four years. So, this was two terms, and it seemed like a good time to bow out.
Miller attending a LEAP rally event last year.
Photo courtesy of Chris Jenkins
What are some of the feelings you're having with this retirement and leaving this position?
I'm excited about getting a new house and getting things arranged in there. I'm excited to be closer to my stepdaughters and my grandsons, but I'm kind of torn up. This place has meant so much to me, and I've spent almost half my life in Columbus and at the W, so I will really miss being around here and taking part in all the things, but I feel like it's time.
Since you know you've been the university president for eight years, and you've been a part of The W for so long, what are you going to miss most about this?
I will miss commencement day, seeing the graduates, seeing all the emotions across their face and looking out at their families. That's always a really meaningful thing. I'll miss the concerts, and I'll miss just being on campus.
Over your time as university president, you've gone through some kind of major events, COVID-19, the name change event, the MSU merger and MSMS. What was it like trying to lead the university through all of those events?
COVID was the strangest, but everybody else was going through the same thing, and so it was. I was very thankful that I knew this campus, and I knew the people. I became president in 2018, so I had gone through the American Association of State Colleges and Universities at a new president's Academy. It's like boot camp for new college presidents. And there were, I think, 27 of us that went through this, and we kind of kept together as a class. We check in every now and then. But during COVID, it was wonderful having that group.
And it was, you know, presidents from California, from Maryland, all over the country and different size institutions, but it was great having that those people to share things with and just kind of bounce things off of. That was, that was the strangest. But like I said, everybody else was going through the same thing, so it wasn't peculiar to us. The name change was something that I felt when I became president. I felt that that was going to be something that I needed to tackle and to take on, and I was hoping to get a bit done so that the next President wouldn't have to deal with all of that. It was exhausting.
Then, when the bill came out to merge, to give us the name of Mississippi State University at The W, that was probably the lowest point, because I had no idea that bill was coming, and that just really both broke out from under us. So, I'm thankful for everybody who then came together to fight that. I think people who maybe had kind of taken us for granted realize how important The W is to not just our alumni and to our students, but also to the community and to the nursing profession and education. And people really realize what an impact we have and have had. So, I wouldn't want to go through it again, but I think at the end of the day, I think we came out stronger for it.
Did it help in any way that this has been something that they've been trying to do for a while for the university, that you were able to see how past presidents had attempted to navigate it?
It helped. And then I saw that we had gotten further than the earlier attempt had been. But, you know, the problem is, we just never could come up with a name. I don't know that there is a name that people would just pick. What I kept trying to tell people is, you don't love your institution because of the name. You love it because of the experiences you had, the relationships that you made, you know, the opportunities it gave you. It's more than a name, but we just couldn't hit with one that people could get behind.
Miller with alumni on Charter Day 2025.
Photo courtesy of University Relations
What are you hoping that the next President will have to offer the W?
I hope that they will be able to love the W as much as I have, and I hope that they will. If they are not familiar with us, they will take a good while to learn our history and the people, and to learn the qualities of the leadership team that we have here and take it to the next level.
Going back to prior to your presidency, what were some of the previous roles you've had here at the W that led to you getting this presidency?
I was senior vice president for finance and administration, and I had that position for 17 years, so I was over procurement, accounting, facilities, and even construction projects here on campus, at some point, HR, so it was a lot of the operations of the campus.
Do you think that because you had had experiences in finance and HR, that helped you be more prepared for when they asked you to be president?
Definitely. When talking with presidents at other institutions, several of them said, ‘I wish I had had that kind of background,’ because they didn't really understand what the finances were or how to kind of maneuver all of it. So, it was definitely an advantage.
How did becoming the president versus like when you were just an alum or a faculty member? How did that change your perspective of The W?
It didn't really change my perspective of The W, but it, you know, being on a small campus, you're kind of involved in everything, no matter what your role is. But there was more on the Student Affairs side and the academic side, but I was all pretty integrated, as it was. But I did just expand my viewpoint.
Once you leave The W, are you planning on staying involved at all with the alumni and happenings on campus?
I will. I'll take some time away. That’s one reason why I'm moving from the community. It's not really good for a new president to have a former president right in the backyard. So, I'll separate for a little bit, just to give the new president space to do what they want to do. But I will certainly support The W. I plan to be active in the Jackson metro area alumni group, and I will attend things on campus, but I will do that with the grace of the new president. I want to give them the chance to make everything their own.
In this last year of your presidency, how would you describe it, and what would you wish you had done differently?
I didn't say anything to the commissioner, the board, or anybody, until like December. I had the fall thinking that this is my last move-in day, this is my last fall convocation. So that's been kind of bittersweet. So, I'm glad now that I've announced it and am talking about it. I feel better about that, because when I was talking to prospective students, and like on the awards day giving the scholarships, I thought, but I won't be here when you're here, you know. And so, it felt good just being open about it.
As far as what I would have done differently, the name change. I don't know if I could have done it another way that would have ended up better. That's really the one thing; it's the main thing.
Before June, and before you step out of the presidency, what are you hoping to finish up here at The W?
I am hoping that we will be able to push some things through legislatively. We are trying to work on a partnership with Nashoba General Hospital. They have a need for nurses in that area. East Central does have an associate degree for nursing. They would like to have the opportunity for people in that area to earn a BSN, and they have received some funding from the legislature to build a building on their campus that would be suitable for nursing education, and they have reached out to us to see if we would join them.
We received some money a couple of years ago to expand nursing, but it wasn't enough to build or to really expand much of a footprint here on this campus. We're hoping that we can have a partnership and get that done. And so, we're looking for some more funding from the legislature on that. I would love to see that come true.
We also have requests for bond funding for other projects. I'd like to see those get funded. We wouldn't be able to get started on any of those while I'm still here, but I'm hoping that we can do that. We are working on the new strategic plan, and we had our first meeting for that last month. We had a lot of good conversation, a lot of good input. We've got people from campus, we've got people from the community, and we've got some alumni involved in developing this. And there will be forums for people to talk about where we're going and to offer input and give feedback. And I think this will be something that is exciting, and I think it's good for getting the campus all together on something.
When we built the last strategic plan, it was still during COVID, and it was kind of not knowing what was coming, and it was pretty conservative, just not knowing what we were going to be facing. I'm excited about a strategic plan that really is looking to the future and seeing how we can best adapt to the needs in the state and of our students. And I think that will be a gift to the incoming president to have a campus that's kind of cohesively behind something, but it won't be so specific that they won't be able to adapt it. As I said, it's kind of the guard rails of this is we want to be in this lane, and there's a lot that can be done in that lane, and a lot of different ways to get to something, but I think that's what I'm looking forward to having that done and ready to hand that off.
If you don't mind, could you tell a little about what the process looks like for them in finding the new president?
That's really for the IHL board, and we haven't had real discussions about that. I know that they typically don't like to have more than one search going on at a time, and they are still in the midst of the Jackson State search, so I wouldn't expect this to start up until they've completed that. And I'm not sure what their timeline is on making that announcement, but I informed them in December so that there'd be six months to them to kind of decide what the timeline would be and what they would want.
If you look at the IHL website, mississippi.edu, there’s a policy on how searches are handled. I was named interim effective July, and it was at the March board meeting that they named me as interim. And then gave a few months, when the faculty returned in the fall, they had a listening session just to see what qualities people wanted to see, how things were going with me. And at that time, they decided to name me president, not to go forward with a full national search.
If that was not their decision, they would have then opened it up for a national search and had a firm come in to do that. So that's kind of the way they normally operate, either name an interim and see how it's going, or whatever. In the past, I came in as vice president under an interim president, and that was Judge Lenore Prather, who just stepped down from the Supreme Court. She was local here in Columbus. She was an alum. She had no intention of being the permanent president, so it was just a one-year term while they did that full national search. Then, when that search was done, that was when Claudia Limbert was named president.
So, I would think they will have an interim and then make the decision about a national search if they name an interim effective July. Again, I don't see them doing anything, really, until everyone's returned in the fall, so it'll likely then be a while before we have any news. I would think if they're going to name an interim, I would expect to hear something about that in the next couple of months, and then probably in September or October, a decision would be made. But it's just based on what they've done in the past.
How do you hope your time at The W will be remembered by students, alumni and the community?
I'm sure every president who has come in here has wound up loving The W, but I loved it all my life. So, I hope they'll remember that and remember just that this campus is like a family. I hope that I've been involved in as many things here as I could be, and that I made a mark somehow.