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Wilbur Miller, Who Reshaped Drake's Campus During 13 Years as President, Has Died

Drake University

A former president of Drake University in Des Moines has died. Wilbur Miller played a significant role in shaping the Drake campus we see today.

Miller was a Des Moines native and attended Drake for two years in the early 1940s.

Much of his academic career was spent at the University of Denver, where he taught psychology and eventually became dean of faculty and acting chancellor.

He was named Drake’s ninth president in 1972 and stayed in the job for 13 years.

During that time, many of the school’s most prominent buildings went up – the Harmon Fine Arts Center, the Olmsted Student Center, Olin Hall of Biological Science, the Bell Recreational Center, Aliber and Cartwright halls. He said in an interview at the time of his retirement, “one thing that’s happened, without a question, is that we’ve made Drake a campus.”

Wilbur Miller died Sunday. He was 94 years old.