This personal concern for fellow workers as well as friends was widely recognized and had interesting outcomes, one of which had lasting effects on former biology student Grace Shaner. Looking for a new challenge after World War II, she took a suggestion from another former Miller student (Charlotte Schiffert Kershner, now deceased) and contacted Miss Miller about three existing openings in the Sharp & Dohme pharmacology research lab. Grace was fortunate to get one of them, and on the job she eventually met Lee Schuchardt, also a Sharp researcher, who later became her husband. The couple developed an onthe- job and personal relationship with Dr Miller, and when Grace later became a housewife and mother, K (as she was known by her lab associates) “gave us the honor of being the godmother for one of our sons, who is quite proud of her.”

K retired from Merck in 1978 and, though she became free to devote even more time to her Moravian interests and assignments, she has also been able to expand her free-time interests in bird watching, music (she owns a fiddle), and relationships with old friends and acquaintances. “I attend symphony concerts and operas (New York Metropolitan) with friends,” she says. “I used to play my fiddle with a retired surgeon who died recently [age 94]. Since then I have not played, but I listen to records or broadcasts of classical music, mostly.” At age 91, she still manages to travel to the campus from her New Jersey apartment, though the visits may be a bit less frequent than in the past. But to board chair Priscilla Payne Hurd, “Kitty remains a model of commitment and faithfulness on the board. Respected and admired by her fellow trustees, she has never lost her strong, genuine interest in the life and work of Moravian College—and especially in our students. Just as Moravian College is a ‘small national treasure.’ Kitty is most certainly a Moravian College treasure.”

The Millers and Herman Collier

Teaching talents that marked the career of Dr. Kitty Miller similarly highlighted the life of her late brother, W. Schuyler Miller, professor emeritus of chemistry at Randolph-Macon College in Virginia. This coincidence produced a unique event in the relatively recent history of Moravian College.

Schuyler, a 1930 graduate of Lehigh University, quickly earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees and joined the faculty at Randolph-Macon. In one of his classes he had an outstanding student who went on to a distinguished career as an industrial research chemist and college professor.

In 1969 Moravian's trustees were searching for a new president. Before they made a selection from a list of likely candidates, someone suggested to Kitty Miller, who was chair of the search committee, that they interview the professor of chemistry then heading Moravian's division of natural sciences. She invited him to an interview, and the trustees were so impressed with his teaching, scientific, and management skills that they elected him to serve as eighth president of Moravian College. The successful applicant was Herman E. Collier Jr., who had learned his college chemistry two decades before in the Randolph-Macon classroom of Kitty Miller's older brother.

But as Bettie Smolansky, professor of sociology and a board colleague of Kitty, recounts details of the coincidence, Collier always gave Kitty credit for his advancement. She tells how, when introducing Kitty to a new board member, he would put his arm around her and say proudly: "She is the reason I'm here." Then he would explain that her brother Schuyler, his former professor, had so influenced him as a teacher that he had decided to pursue a similar career.

Collier, of course, did the Miller kids proud. He headed Moravian for 17 years, and in 1986, Moravian's science building, erected in 1970, was rededicated in his honor as the Collier Hall of Science.

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