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Miller, Char (EA), Environmental Design Track Advisor Print

Education

B. A. in History and Political Studies, Pitzer College 

M.A. in History, The Johns Hopkins University

Ph.D. in History, The Johns Hopkins University

Specialty Interests

U. S. environmental history, politics and policy; federal public-lands management; urban history, politics and development; intellectual and cultural history

Contact

Office: Edmunds 127

Phone: 909.607.8343

Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Char Miller on balcony

Photo © 2004 Mark Greenberg, San Antonio Current.
 

Hot off the Press:

"We are all inhabitants of nature" (op-ed)
"Getting together on the environment" (op-ed)
"U. S. Exploring Expedition" (essay)
"Milagro Lane" (review)
"Fay Sinkin changed city's nature" (op-ed)
"Bulldozing Nature," (op-ed)
"Texas Conservation Legacy Project" (interview)
"Water in the West" (videostream)
"Conservation in America" (videostream)  
"Smart cities: learning from our past" (podcast) 

Biography

I am the director of the environmental analysis program and the W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis at Pomona. Among other fun tasks, I am joining with the EA faculty across the five Claremont colleges to build a cross-campus major. We have just received a $1.5M grant from the Mellon Foundation to help us pursue our goals, a wonderful gift and a significant boost to the program and its academic ambitions.

From 2007-09, I served as a visiting professor at Pomona, teaching American environmental and urban history. Prior to that, I had taught since 1981 at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, where I was chair of the History Department and Director of Urban Studies. In 2007, I was tapped as a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians; in 2002 was named a Piper Professor, a prize awarded by the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation for excellence in teaching and service to higher education in Texas; and in 1997, was awarded the Dr. and Mrs. Z. T. Scott Faculty Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching by Trinity University. 

A Senior Fellow of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation, I'm also a Contributing Writer of the Texas Observer, an Associate Editor of Environmental History and the Journal of Forestry, and have served on the editorial board of the Pacific Historical Review. Past service includes working on the Board of Directors of the Forest History Society and the editorial board of the Trinity University Press; Chair of the State Board of Review for the Texas Historical Commission; historical consultant to the City of San Antonio’s Main Plaza Redevelopment project; and as an appointed member to the city's Open Space Advisory Board and Tree Preservation Ordinance Panel.


Courses Presently Taught:

EA 27 Cities by Nature: Time, Space, Place (Fall 09)
A cross-cultural, multi-continental examination of urbanization from the ancient world to the present,  the course explores the changing nature of urban life and its rituals; it also addresses the impact urban development has had upon environmental systems, as well on political, social and economic structures.

EA 70 Nature, Cuture, and Society (Fall 09) - new course!
This will be a required class for EA majors and minors beginning in 2009-10, and will use case studies as a method of analyzing key environmental dilemmas. Topics will vary, but will draw on an interdisciplinary array of sources in the humanities and social sciences, with the objective of helping students better understand how we imagine, interpret, value, and engage with nature (and "Nature"); and how those responses shape the human condition and planetary health.

EA 170 U. S. Environmental History (Spring 10)
 When you look at a tree, what do you see? What language would you employ to describe it? The choice is endless, and is made all the more complicated by the fact that such choices are culturally constructed and change over time; we do not look at trees--or anything else--in quite the ways our ancestors did. This is crucial, for how people perceive trees (or the land, generally) determines how  they will react to and use it. And it is is with these changing perceptions that this seminar is concerned. We wdraw on primary and secondary sources to probe how earlier generations conceived of nature, and in doing so we will gain a deeper understanding of contemporary environmental concerns and anxieties - or at least that's the hope!

EA 171 Water in the West (Spring 10)
An exploration of how communities, states and the federal government developed the legal precedents, physical infrastructure, financial mechanisms, environmental engineering, political will, and social desire for the construction of a hydraulic empire in the Trans-Mississippi West. Topics will include Los Angeles’ water grabs; the plumbing of the Colorado River; how irrigation settled the west; and contemporary urban water woes.


Recent Publications

Books:

  • Ground Work: Conservation in American Culture, (Durham: Forest History Society, 2007).
  • Deep in the Heart of San Antonio: Land & Life in South Texas, (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 2004). (Award: 2007 Citation, San Antonio Conservation Society).
  • Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism, (Washington, D.C.: Island Press/Shearwater Books, 2001; paperback, 2004).   (Awards: 2003 Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Book Award, Forest History Society; 2002 Independent Publishers Association Biography Prize; 2002 National Outdoor Book Award for History/Biography; ForeWord Magazine's Gold Award for Biography; Connecticut Center for the Book Biography Prize, 2002.  Citations: Washington Book Publishers Design Award, (Jacket, 2nd Prize); Booklist's Pioneering Environmentalists Core List; Booklist's Top Ten Biographies of Social Activists; Academic Magazine's Core 1000 List)
  • The Greatest Good: 100 Years of Forestry in America, (Washington, D.C.: The Society of American Foresters, 1999; second edition, 2004). With Rebecca Staebler. (Awards: 2000 Society of National Association Publications "Excel Gold Award"; 2000 Washington Book Publishers Awards: "First Place" and "Second Place," for book design; 2000 APEX Award for Publication Excellence; 2000 Outstanding Forestry Book, The National Woodland Owners Association)

Edited Volumes:

Articles & Chapters

  • “Interview: Alfred Crosby,” Environmental History 14:3, July 2009, p. 559-568. (With Mark Cioc).
  • “Interview: John Opie,” Environmental History, 14:2, April 2009, p. 252-65. (With Mark Cioc).
  • "The Once and Future Forest Service: Landscape Politics and Policies Over Time," Journal of Policy History, Winter 2009, p. 89-104.
  • "James Eights: A 19th-Century American Naturalist," Encyclopedia of Earth. February 2009.
  • "Interview: Susan Flader," Environmental History, 14:1, January 2009, p. 151-63. (With Mark Cioc).
  • "Will the Forest Service Celebrate its Bicentennial? Managing the National Forests and Grasslands in an Age of Climate Change," in Daniel Kemmis, ed., Challenges Facing the U.S. Forest Service: A Critical Review, (Missoula, MT: Center for the Rocky Mountain West, 2008), p. 12-21.
  • Le Coup d’Oeil Forestier: Shifting Views of Federal Forestry in America, 1870-1945,” in V. Alaric Sample, et al., eds., Sustainable Forest Management: The Divergence and Reconvergence of European and American Forestry, (Durham: Forest History Society, 2008), p. 94-112.
  • "When Republicans Were Green: Conservation in the Age of Theodore Roosevelt," Journal of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, Fall 2007, p. 12-24. 
  • "Interview: Samuel P. Hays," Environmental History, July 2007, p. 666-77.  (With Mark Cioc).
  • "Interview: Roderick Nash," Environmental History, April 2007, p. 399-407. (With Mark Cioc).
  • “A Sylvan Prospect: John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and Twentieth-Century Conservationism,” in Michael Lewis, ed., American Wilderness, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 131-48.
  • "Interview: Hal K. Rothman," Environmental History, January 2007, p. 141-52. (With Mark Cioc).  
  • “Landmark Decision: The Antiquities Act, Big-Stick Conservation, and the Modern State,” in David Harmon, et al., eds., The Antiquities Act and the Foundations of American Conservation, (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2006), p. 64-78.
  • "Proving Ground: Richard Harding Davis in the American West," Southwest Review, 90 (1), Summer 2005, p. 13-28 (received the 2005 McGinnis-Ritchie Award for Nonfiction from the Southwest Review).
  • “Deep Roots: The Late Nineteenth Century Origins of American Forestry,” Forest History Today, Spring/Fall 2005, p. 2-3.
  • “French Lessons: “F. P. Baker, American Forestry, and the 1878 Paris Universal Exposition,” Forest History Today, Spring/Fall 2005, p. 10-15.
  • “Amateur Hour:  Nathaniel H. Egleston and the Forestry Movement in Post-Civil War America,” Forest History Today, Spring/Fall 2005, p. 20-26
  • “At the Creation: The National Forest Commission of 1896-97,” Forest History Today, (Co-author), p.  20-26, Spring/Fall 2005, p. 32-41. 
  • “With Friends Like These: John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and the Drama of Environmental Politics,” in Sally Miller and Daryl Morrison, eds., John Muir: Friends, Family and Adventures, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005), p. 121-146.
  • "Past Forward," Journal of Forestry, July/August 2005, p. 215-17. 
  • “A Transformative Place: Grey Towers and the Conservation Legacy of the Pinchot Family,” Journal of Forestry, July/August, 2005, p. 237-240.
  • "Running Dry: Water and Development in San Antonio,"  Journal of the West, Summer 2005, p. 44-50.
  • "Crisis Management: Challenge and Controversy in Forest Service History," Rangelands, June 2005, p. 14-18.
  • "'What, No Beer?': Pearl Brewery and the Building of San Antonio," South Texas Studies 2005, p. 28-47.

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