Dr. Montserrat Miller, an associate professor of history at Marshall University, was named 2007 Professor of the Year by the Faculty Merit Foundation of West Virginia.

Miller, who was one of five finalists, received $10,000 and a trophy. The runner-up received $1,000 and the remaining three finalists received $500 each.

The Faculty Merit Foundation of West Virginia each year honors an outstanding faculty member at a West Virginia college or university. The Professor of the Year award is presented with financial support from United Bank.

“This is not really about me or about any single individual,” Miller said. “The award celebrates higher education in West Virginia.”

Miller said West Virginia colleges and universities “are nodes in a global network that some call the Republic of Learning.”

“Through them we attract talented and committed professionals from far and wide,” she said. “I’m surrounded by legions of disciplined professionals who’ve dedicated their lives to serving our students and our communities. They understand teaching to be a sacred trust, a privilege, and an honor. Teaching is a way of expressing hope for the future, it involves planting seeds that we may not live to see mature.”

Miller has been a member of the Marshall History Department since 1996. She has won several awards during that time, including the Hedrick Outstanding Faculty Award in 2007, the College of Liberal Arts Outstanding Teacher Award in 2006, and the Pickens-Queen Teaching Award in 1999.

She received a Ph.D. (1994) and M.A. (1990) in European Social History from Carnegie Mellon University, and an M.A. in History (1988) and a B.A. in International Affairs (1983) from Marshall.

She is a member of several organizations, including the American Historical Association, the Society for Spanish and Portugese Historical Studies, and the European Business History Association.

Before coming to Marshall, Miller was an assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and director of the World History Instructional Design Project at Carnegie Mellon University.

Dr. Sarah Denman, provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at Marshall, nominated Miller for Professor of the Year. She described Miller as “an outstanding teacher, a caring mentor and advisor, and a prolific scholar.”

“Montserrat’s classes are widely regarded by students as very hard and yet they are always fully enrolled,” Denman said. “If you ask students why this is so, they will tell you that she is demanding but fair, inclusive, encouraging, and inspirational. They will tell you that they absorb her passion for history and learn to rise to her high expectations because she believes they can.”