John William Miller Fellowship Fund

History and Mission The John William Miller Fellowship Fund was established by Miller’s friends and former students to advance the understanding of his thinking. Over time, the Fund grew in scope, evolving into the John William Miller Society (JWMS). The JWMS has helped support a number of book and essay projects on Miller. More recently, the JWMS grew again, to incorporate a prizes division, devoted to awarding outstanding essays and books either about Miller’s philosophy, or about the thinkers and themes most important to him or essential for understanding his work. A BRIEF HISTORY At its inception the Fund, informally founded in the 1960s, was a loose collection of former students who brought their ideas and resources together to honor Miller’s career at Williams College. (Most active in initial stages of the collective efforts that would become the Miller Fund was one member of the Williams College class of 1935, Barry S. Wolff, and three from the class of 1936, Philip A. Brégy, George P. Brockway, and Robert H. Elias.) In 1960 a sum of money was set aside to support the John William Miller Prize in Philosophy which took the form of a book award to the best student of philosophy in a given Williams graduating class. It was not until Miller’s death in 1978, however, that the Fund took on a more definitive structure. At that time Brockway coordinated the collection of materials and funds necessary to achieve the larger end of propagating Miller’s thought and establishing his reputation as a philosopher in the American tradition. In 1984, those resources were formally organized under the aegis of Williams College.