Background

James Miller was born on July 17, 1916, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Education

After attending Columbia Bible College (now Columbia International University) in South Carolina briefly in preparation for the ministry, James Miller convinced his father that he was headed for secular education and transferred to Harvard University. Within a six-year span, he got four degrees: a Bachelor of Arts with summa cum laude in 1937, a Master of Arts in psychology in 1938, a Doctor of Medicine with cum laude in 1942, and a Doctor of Philosophy in psychology in 1943.

Career

During World War II, James Miller served in the Army Medical Corps as a captain. He was involved in evaluating potential agents for the Office of Strategic Services, which later became the Central Intelligence Agency. After the war, he served as Chief of the newly formed Clinical Psychology section of the Veteran's Administration central office in Washington.

In 1948 James Miller joined academia as a professor of psychology and chair of the department at the University of Chicago, which he held until 1955. 1955-1967 he spent at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor as a professor. From 1967 to 1971, he was a professor at Cleveland State University, where he was also vice president of academic affairs until 1970 and provost from 1970 to 1971. Miller then moved to the University of Louisville as vice president of academic educational development, becoming president in 1973 until his retirement in 1980. As president, he helped set up the nursing college and significantly increased enrollment while transitioning the school from a private to a public institution. In 1980 Miller became president of the Robert Maynard Hutchins Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions until 1983. During the early 1980s, he was also an adjunct professor at the Universities of California at Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Los Angeles. Moreover, Miller worked as a psychiatrist at Brentwood A. Hospital from 1981 to 1988 and the La Jolla V.A. Hospital in 1989.

While working as a University of Louisville president, Miller's influential book Living Systems was published. This work intended to uncover common principles governing everything, from the smallest living cell to complex organizational systems, such as political states and business corporations, as well as the organization of nonliving things. Additionally, Miller was the founder of the journal Behavioral Science (now Systems Research and Behavioral Science), which he edited from 1956 to 1986. He also created an educational computer network entitled EDUCOM, the Interuniversity Communications Council, in 1964, which later became part of EDUNET. Miller's other publications include Unconsciousness, the coauthored works are Assessment of Men, Computers and Education, and Measurement and Interpretation in Accounting: A Living Systems Theory Approach, and as well as several edited works.

Achievements

• James Miller was best known as an educator, writer, and editor. While serving as a president at the University of Louisville, he helped set up the nursing college, significantly increased enrollment while transitioning the school from a private to a public institution. Additionally, Miller was a founder of the Interuniversity Communications Council, EDUCOM, and the journal Behavioral Science, where he served as an editor for thirty years. James Miller also was a fellow or member of numerous scientific and professional societies, such as the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Assessment of Men

    (This book provides a candid exploration of the first atte...)

    1948
  • Living Systems

    (Now in paperback, James Miller's groundbreaking Living Sy...)

    1978
  • Measurement and Interpretation in Accounting

    (For many years the accounting profession has attempted to...)

    1989
  • Unconsciousness 1942
  • Experiments in Social Process 1950
  • The Pharmacology and Clinical Usefulness of Carisoprodol 1959
  • Drugs and Behaviour 1960

Views

James Miller built an accomplished theory of living systems. He concentrated on non-random accumulations of matter-energy in physical space-time organized into interacting, interrelated subsystems or components. He highlighted eight "nested" hierarchical levels in which the higher level contains the next lower level in a nested manner. Miller's core point was that the systems in existence at all eight levels are open systems composed of twenty critical subsystems that process inputs, throughputs, and outputs of various forms of matter-energy and information. Of those, two, reproducer and boundary, process both matter-energy and information and eight - a process only matter-energy. The other ten process information only.

Connections

James Miller had a wife, Jessie Miller, and two sons, John and Thomas Miller.

Wife:

Jessie Miller

Son:

John Miller

Son:

Thomas Miller