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Academic success coach Rita Miller ’73 has worked at Millersville University for 50 years, since 1975. To provide some context, that’s the year the Vietnam War ended, Queen released “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Microsoft was founded, TV shows “Saturday Night Live” and “Wheel of Fortune” launched, and “Jaws” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” debuted in movie theaters.
Miller’s journey was not a straight line by any stretch of the imagination. Her tenure has been full of twists and turns, mostly because of who she is: a multitasker, a team player, a lifelong learner and someone who sees a need and addresses it.
Throughout the years and the various titles and offices, one thing about Miller has remained constant: She is and always has been here for the students.
How She Arrived
Miller and her family lived in Philadelphia. Her parents moved there from a more rural part of the country for the economic advantages of a big city, but they never truly adjusted to city life. Miller, too, was not a fan of the noise, crowds and bustle of the city. In fact, her “mission in life was not to be a part of a big city,” she says.
She spent a year studying at Temple but left because she was disturbed by how the University’s growth was displacing vulnerable indigent populations in the adjacent neighborhoods. She witnessed a similar disturbing trend of neighborhood disruption by the City of Philadelphia while working as a buyer’s assistant at Strawbridge & Clothier department store, where a local neighborhood of immigrants brought their homemade goods to barter for items off the back docks of the store. When these people were forced to move west to make room for city business and commerce expansion, she documented how the move affected them. “I followed 60 of them and watched their health and energy demise,” she says. “I wrote a paper about it for one of my classes, and it was not received well by the University or the city government.”
So, Miller came to Millersville to finish her studies. She earned a bachelor’s degree in secondary education social studies-sociology in 1973 and went on to earn a M.Ed. in guidance counseling.
As a graduate student, Miller and her two roommates took a first aid course through West End Ambulance Association in Millersville. She then went on to volunteer for the organization, which was the first volunteer ambulance service to be in quarters 24 hours a day. Miller, however, was left with questions. “I wanted to see the bigger picture,” she says. “What happens to the folks we treat? Are they recovering? Am I making a difference?”
Her desire to know more led her to enroll in the pilot paramedic program at the former St. Joseph Hospital in Lancaster. Miller “made it through” the six-week, intensive, physician-directed training program. She challenged and passed the state certification exam and went on to volunteer in the hospital’s emergency room, which was short on staff. “I became the triage person in the emergency room resuscitation and trauma areas and then the prehospital area mobile intensive care unit,” Miller explains. “The hospital was seeking certification as the first American Medical Association-certified trauma unit in Lancaster County.” That volunteer position evolved into a paid one doing weekend electrocardiograms to cover another tech who needed time off and then as a regular MICU paramedic.
Miller also served as a counselor/teacher for the paramedic programs, proctored students and taught for the American Red Cross, the American Heart Association and the Emergency Health Services Federation in South Central Pennsylvania. It was during these experiences that she began using a phrase that stuck with her throughout her career, telling those she was teaching and proctoring to work toward excellence until she could “see smoke coming off your sneakers!”
Residence Hall Director and Adviser to Many
Miller says her first career goal was running a halfway house and “helping socially maladjusted and emotionally disturbed teens deal with the traumas of their existence.” Her placement in Residence Life as a graduate assistant got her close to that goal, she says, as the students she was working with were “the right age, striving toward a goal, and many brought emotional trauma history with them to school.”
Miller remained in Residence Life after earning her master’s degree and began working for the University as a residence hall director. Her desire to learn – “I’ve always been that type of person” – pushed her to take on responsibilities outside of the Residence Life office. “I needed to know how what I was doing fit with other pieces of the University to help students,” she says. Residence Life became the tether as “I branched out and looked at different things that affected the global population of students.”
Miller answered a call for help after the undeclared major program was created. “There was a need for advisers who weren’t married to an academic program,” she explains. “I realized I was already doing this – counseling students – as a residence hall director.”
Next, she responded to a request from the Adult Continuing Education program, where an extended vacancy left students without an adviser. “Many students in the program were trying to decide whether to re-enroll or start from scratch,” Miller says. “I jumped at the opportunity to become an academic adviser for them.”
International students were another group who enjoyed the benefits of Miller’s advising. As a residence hall director, she developed a job description and training program for student security guards, which yielded a lot of interest from international students. She developed an appreciation for the sacrifices they made through her interaction with them. “That morphed into my becoming the international student adviser after the retirement of an associate vice president for student affairs,” Miller says.
Miller refers to her work with international students as one of the greatest highlights of her career. “It was a unique opportunity to get a view of another culture and country without having to travel there,” she says. “I learned amazing things about other places and cultures listening to these students share their experiences and life stories.”
9/11 led to significant changes in the requirements for international study, according to Miller. “It ushered in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System and a more formal process for Millersville to accept international students,” she explains. “It was much more cumbersome for students who were coming to Millersville for their degree as well as our students who wanted to study abroad.”
Alongside her work counseling international students, which lasted for 16 years, Miller also offered help to students with physical and emotional disabilities for more than five years. With her background as a paramedic, she believed she could assist these students with their needs. She arranged classroom and campus accommodations to facilitate adjustment and provided counseling and guidance.
Throughout her various positions and responsibilities, Miller continued to work for Residence Life. “I had an office in Lyle Hall for advising international students and students with disabilities, and an office in Harbold Hall for the resident student population.” She advanced from residence hall director to assistant director and finally associate director of housing and residential programs. “Working in the central office rather than in a residence hall allowed me to begin paying attention to Millersville as an entire entity,” she says. “I began to understand how changes impact our students, the ultimate consumers of our services.”
Academic Success Coach
Miller has served as an academic success coach since 2020, thanks, in part, to the COVID pandemic. “Operations budget cuts in the housing and residential programs area were made to cover partial refunds to students for the spring semester after we closed the physical campus due to COVID,” she explains, “and three people, including me, were placed in other positions. The academic success position, which had been frozen, was opened to accommodate me and my 30+ years of academic advising experience.”
As an academic success coach, Miller works with students to “improve habits and create strategies for success.” The position is holistic, she says, and looks at all aspects that contribute to students reaching their goals and milestones. “School, work and life balance issues are considered,” Miller says, “including financial, personal and family circumstances.”
Faculty raise red flags in Starfish – the University’s student success platform – or refer students to Miller, who ultimately encourages and assists them to keep working toward their goals. She cherishes the opportunity to see students come, grow and evolve, and go out into the world to make a good difference in the communities where they work and live. “That’s why we’re here,” she says, “to make a difference in students’ lives by adding value. That is our central function, and there’s nothing that’s more gratifying.”
Seeds of Change
Miller believes in planting the seeds of change – whether in students or in the University – in a subtle manner. Throughout her career at Millersville, her institutional knowledge led to her participating on search committees for four presidential searches. Her role, she says, was to ask questions to determine if the candidate was aware of critical issues that existed and find out what they would do or what they would bring to the University. “I would subtly say, ‘What about this or that?’ to see what they knew about the University and if they were prepared to make positive changes.”
Miller sees herself as a change agent, but one who works behind the scenes. She’s an observer of society and culture, someone who appreciates community. She doesn’t believe in change for change’s sake or doing the “splash and dash, heading out the door before you see if your impact on a place is positive or negative.”
How long will she stay at Millersville? That’s not a question she’s prepared to answer yet. “Millersville University is an excellent place to work,” she offers. “I think that I bring more value to my work the longer I stay. I’m still healthy, still having fun and still informing change. Many years ago, I chose Millersville as the place where I could make a difference. I’m still able to do that.”
