Professor Miles Bryant will be honored at a reception recognizing his retirement from the university from 3-5 p.m., Monday, May 5 at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum, 33rd and Holdrege streets on East Campus. The Department of Educational Administration and the College of Education and Human Sciences invite you join them in recognizing Dr. Bryant’s career and accomplishments as a professor at UNL. RSVP to jenny.day@unl.edu by May 1.
Miles Bryant has served the university in many capacities: as a teacher to hundreds of graduate students in educational administration, as an advisor to over 45 successful doctoral students, and as a published scholar. Of note is work he carried out with Marilyn Grady looking at conflict between school superintendents and school boards as well as research exploring the impact of culture on leadership. His well-received book on crafting the dissertation proposal has been used in many graduate doctoral programs and continues to be appreciated by doctoral students at UNL and beyond.
“Miles is the personification of what we all hope for in a college professor,” said Marjorie Kostelnik, dean of the College of Education and Human Sciences. “He cares deeply about his students and the process of learning. His work advising doctoral students on their dissertations is so widely respected that his book on the subject, ‘The Portable Dissertation Advisor,’ is in the hands of faculty and students all over the country. We’ve been fortunate to have his knowledge and expertise here at UNL and take pride in his broader accomplishments as well.”
There have been many highlights for Dr. Bryant. He recalls being mentored as a new professor by colleagues Fred Wendel and Ward Sybouts. With Larry Dlugosh and Jody Isernhagen he team-taught an intensive five-week summer class for a number of years. He worked on a state rural schools initiative called School at the Center and joined a national evaluation team assessing the Annenberg Rural Challenge.
Significantly, Dr. Bryant was one of the early adopters of online education. He was one of those who piloted beta editions of Blackboard at UNL. Throughout his career at UNL he has enjoyed working with international students. He formed and led a small organization labeled International Students in the Schools. He has advised masters and doctoral students from many different countries and was recently awarded a Fulbright scholarship to the country of Georgia. This summer he joins colleagues from New Zealand, Hong Kong and England in publishing a special issue of the British Journal, “Management in Education.”
He has been active in faculty governance at UNL, serving on the Academic Senate as secretary, president–elect and president; serving on the university Academic Rights and Responsibilities Committee as chair; and serving as an active member of the state AAUP chapter. On two separate occasions he served as the departmental representative to the college’s Promotion and Tenure Committee and has been a member of the college Faculty Advisory Committee.