History of the Miller Center

Gerald L. Baliles, 65th Governor of Virginia and former Chairman of the board of PBS, became Director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs in April 2006. The Center, following Jefferson's vision of the University's public service mission, is a leading public policy institution that serves as a national meeting place where engaged citizens, scholars, students, media representatives and government officials gather in a spirit of nonpartisan consensus to research, reflect and report on issues of national importance to the governance of the United States, with special attention to the central role and history of the presidency.

Origins

The Miller Center was founded in 1975 through the philanthropy of Burkett Miller, a 1914 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and prominent Tennessean. Troubled by the partisan rancor he saw developing throughout the nation, Miller envisioned the need for a "non-political forum at which recognized authorities could assemble, consider and discuss matters of national importance." He founded the White Burkett Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia in memory of his father. Through Mr. Miller's lead gift, as well as through past and present gifts by the Center's thousands of supporters, the Miller Center's endowment now stands at more than $50 million. The Center, under the oversight of its Governing Council, is an integral part of the University of Virginia, with maximum autonomy within the University system. Its programs are supported fully by private funds.

The Miller Center's Role

Throughout the Center's history, U.S. presidents, senators, and cabinet secretaries, network anchors, major columnists and reporters, and prize scholars and experts, as well as students and the public, all have made the Center a nonpartisan gathering point to contemplate issues at the national level.

Fittingly, in its role as a national meeting place, the Miller Center enjoys an elegant physical plant of more than 15,000 square feet. The core of the Center's facilities is the historic Faulkner House, built in 1856 and named for novelist William Faulkner, the University's writer in residence in 1957. Faulkner House was the home of Senator Thomas S. Martin, who represented Virginia in the U.S. Senate from 1895 to 1919 and served as majority leader. In 1989 the Center added the Newman Pavilion, which houses the Forum Room to the house, and in 2003 it built the Thompson Pavilion and Scripps Library. The additions are prominent examples of new traditional architecture. Learn more about the history of Faulkner House and the Center.

Leadership

Kenneth W. Thompson, a prolific scholar of international relations and the presidency, served as the Center's Director for more than twenty years, until 1998. Many of the Center's hallmark programs began under Thompson, including the Forum series, the comprehensive oral history projects for successive presidential administrations, and the Center's influential national commissions. James S. Young, Bancroft Prize winner and former vice president of Columbia University, has been an instrumental member of the Center's faculty since its earliest days, and leader of its oral history work. A. Linwood Holton, Jr., Virginia's Governor from 1970 to 1974, served as chair of the Center's Governing Council from 1977 to 1999, and remains a life member of the Council.

Frederick E. Nolting, Jr., Ambassador to South Vietnam from 1961 to 1963 under President Kennedy, served as the Center's first Director, retiring in 1977. Herbert J. Storing, a noted scholar of constitutional history who had spent his career with the University of Chicago, led the Center's presidential studies before his untimely death that same year.

Philip D. Zelikow became the Director of the Center in 1998, and the Center's programming expanded significantly during his tenure. While on public service leave from the Center, Zelikow served as executive director of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (the 9/11 Commission), before leaving the Center to become as Counselor of the U.S. Department of State. In 2006, Zelikow left the State Department to join the faculty of the University of Virginia History Department.

Since Governor Baliles became the Miller Center's Director in 2006, he has further strengthened the Center's academic standing by adding to the faculty, among others, Bancroft Prize winner Melvin P. Leffler. In April 2006, Baliles also announced the Center's plans for a National War Powers Commission and for a National Discussion and Debate Series.