Molly Fritz Miller Molly Fritz Miller entered Wooster from Schenectady, N.Y., with plans to major in history. She met the College’s science requirement with a geology course and started down a different path than she had planned. Miller graduated with honors in geology in 1969.

At Wooster, she was secretary of the student government and a member of the Chamber Orchestra. She led a Girl Scout troop at the Apple Creek State Hospital and spent the summer before her senior year in Ethiopia with Operations Crossroads Africa.

Her memories of Wooster range from listening to Hair about 30,000 times (her estimate); meeting Martin Luther King Jr. while campaigning for Cleveland’s first black mayor, Carl Stokes, and the 1966 7th Section Formal.

Immediately after Wooster, Miller was a Peace Corps trainee in the Ethiopia Secondary Education Program. She earned the master’s degree in geology from The George Washington University in 1971. She taught earth science at the high school level in Montgomery County, Maryland, and also worked as a naturalist for the National Park Service in Bryce Canyon National Park before beginning work on her Ph.D. at UCLA.

In 1976-77, she was an instructor at Pomona College and then, in the fall of 1977, she joined the faculty at Vanderbilt University where she has taught since.

At Vanderbilt, Miller has distinguished herself both in her teaching and scholarship and in her service to the institution. She held one of the first two Vanderbilt Chairs of Teaching Excellence in the College of Arts and Science.

Miller’s service to Vanderbilt has been diverse. She has served as chair of the university’s Faculty Senate and has been on numerous committees. She was presented the Thomas Jefferson Award for service to Vanderbilt and was also named winner of the Pre Major Advisor Award in 1999.

In a 1998 article in Vanderbilt’s alumni magazine, Miller described her continuing fascination with geology this way: "Geology lets you investigate the long-ago past. Sedimentary rocks – made of bits of sand, silt, and clay that were laid down in the oceans, streams and lakes – preserve the record of the earth’s past. When you learn to read the record, you become a long-term historian."

Her research interests include the interaction of burrowing animals with their environment, both now and in the geologic past; the evolution of ecosystems in lakes and streams; and the geologic history of Antarctica.

She was initially asked to go to Antarctica by other scientists who thought her expertise in sedimentary rocks would be helpful to the study. Since 1985, she has visited Antarctica three times with funding from the National Science Foundation.

Miller has published articles in many journals including Geology and the Journal of Paleontology. She is currently science editor of GSA Today, which is published by the Geology Society of America. She also serves as technical editor of the Journal of Paleontology.

A frequent lecturer, Miller has presented invited lectures not only throughout the United States but also abroad, and was a Sigma Xi National lecturer from 1996-1998. In 1992 she presented the 11th annual Richard G. Osgood Lecture at Wooster. She also served as a guest lecturer for Wooster’s Summer of 1996 Alumni College.

Miller has been active in national organizations, including the Society of Sedimentary Geology and the Geological Society of America. As chair of SEPM’s Developing Countries’ Libraries Committee, Miller organized the sending of tons of donated library materials via diplomatic pouch. She also was co-editor of a book published by SEPM for K-12 teachers.

Active in the Nashville community, Miller is currently co-organizer of the School Improvement Plan Monitoring Committee. She has worked to defeat a bill in the Tennessee legislature that would have made it a felony for public school teachers to teach evolution as a fact. She is also serving on a Citizen’s Action Committee investigating blasting that is causing ground motion and damage to homes in a suburban Nashville neighborhood.

Miller and her husband, Calvin Miller, also a member of the Vanderbilt geology faculty, have two children, Spring and Zach.