![Andrew Siebengartner
'03 excelled in the John Dewey Honors program and hopes to share his love of classical languages with the next generation of students and scholars.
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6.5.06 UVM ALUMNUS CONTRIBUTES
$5 MILLION TO CENTER FOR
HOLOCAUST STUDIES
$5 MILLION TO CENTER FOR
HOLOCAUST STUDIES
A University of Vermont alumnus celebrating his 55th class reunion has announced a $5 million gift to support the University's Center for Holocaust Studies.
Burlington, Vermont, native Leonard Miller '51 and his wife Carolyn Rosen Miller are making the gift to renovate Billings Hall on the UVM campus as a permanent home for the Center for Holocaust Studies and to endow two new professorships in Holocaust studies. The renovation will also provide a home for the University's Center for Research on Vermont and for the UVM Libraries' Special Collections. Billings Hall, dedicated in 1885, was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson, the foremost architect of his day, as the university library.
Miller is a retired Florida real estate developer and former mayor of Indian Creek Village, Florida. His wife Carolyn is a realtor specializing in upscale Florida properties.
The Millers have been strong supporters of UVM's Center for Holocaust Studies in the past, having established the Miller Endowment, which provides faculty support and funds the Miller Symposium in Holocaust Studies every other spring at UVM.
"Growing up in Burlington's Old North End, I would never have dreamed that some day I could do something meaningful to assure that the horrors of the Holocaust would not be forgotten," Miller said. "By supporting UVM's Center for Holocaust Studies, Carolyn and I are very pleased that we're able to take a substantial step in that direction and help the University at the same time."
"We are so very grateful to Lenny and Carolyn Miller for this extraordinary gift," said UVM President Daniel Mark Fogel. "Thanks to their thoughtful and purposeful philanthropy, the University of Vermont will stand even taller among the handful of institutions worldwide known for the excellence of their teaching and scholarship surrounding one of the defining events in human history."
UVM's Center for Holocaust Studies was established to celebrate and perpetuate the achievement and legacy of Raul Hilberg, author of The Destruction of the European Jews, widely regarded among scholars as a seminal work in the field of Holocaust studies. Hilberg taught at UVM from 1956 to 1991 and initiated its Holocaust Studies program. The Center offers an academic minor in Holocaust studies and promotes knowledge of the Holocaust through lectures, courses, seminars, visits to local schools, and cultural events on campus.