April 7, 2006
Purdue alumni give to consumer and family sciences to help families
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The fund, to be named the Bob and Joyce Beery Miles Endowment Fund, will be announced today (Friday, April 7) during the annual Felker Leadership Conference, which was established to support programs in education and scholarship at Purdue. This year's conference, open to the public, focuses on how diet affects aging.
"Bob and Joyce Miles have been actively involved with the Felker conference since the first one in 1993, so it's very appropriate that we honor them here today," said Purdue President Martin C. Jischke. "They have supported Purdue for many years by serving on advisory councils and committees that drive research on families. The College of Consumer and Family Sciences will put this gift to good use in the Center for Families and other family-focused programs. "
The Center for Families was established in 1994 through a gift from alumna Lorene McCormick Burkhart of Indianapolis and other donations from the College of Consumer and Family Sciences. The center focuses on improving the quality of life for families and strengthening the capacity to provide nurturing environments for family members. It also serves as a catalyst in facilitating collaboration among professionals, policy-makers, corporations, community organizations and academic disciplines regarding the roles of children and families in society.
Joyce Beery Miles, originally from North Manchester, Ind., earned her bachelor's degree from the college in 1965. She has been a presenter at previous Felker conferences.
Bob Miles grew up in Hartford City, Ind., and earned his bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1963. They met in 1962 at a Halloween party on campus and married three years later.
"It's not easy to predict the future needs of a college, but Bob and Joyce Miles are ensuring that the most critical future needs of students can be met with their very generous gift," said Dennis Savaiano, dean of the College of Consumer and Family Sciences. "By designating a portion of their gift for unrestricted support, they have enabled the college to support its greatest needs, and these needs can vary over time with economic and social conditions."
The Mileses lived in Florida for 40 years after they graduated and didn't become actively involved with the College of Consumer and Family Sciences until 1993, when Joyce Miles was named one of the college's distinguished alumni. She learned about the Center for Families when she attended one of the first Felker conferences to receive her award.
"We were so impressed with the mission for the Center for Families because strong, healthy families are such an important base for Indiana and the nation, " Joyce Miles said. "My subsequent involvement with the Women of Purdue inspired me to be proactive as well as creative in evaluating our estate. Working with this initiative has truly led me on a journey of focused giving."
The Women of Purdue program is an initiative that educates women about philanthropy. The group meets about half a dozen times a year.
She taught family consumer sciences at Duval County Schools in Jacksonville, Fla., for many years and moved on to school administration, retiring in 1997. She now runs her own company that teaches leadership training and career coaching, and she plans to portray Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founder of home economics, in a monologue she hopes to take on stage nationwide.
Bob Miles said people from the College of Consumer and Family Sciences made him feel like part of the family, and after more than 30 years in the construction business, he was open to supporting a field that focuses on the family.
"The most critical part of our lives involves family issues," he said. "We have no children, but through mentoring and volunteering throughout our lives, we've had a lot of them over the years. They have been our family."
While in Florida, the couple had the chance to see the effects of military life on families, and they were impressed with the research being conducted in the college's Military Family Research Institute, which currently is in need of additional funding because of increased demands faced by military families during time of war.
"As part of the school system, I saw a lot of transient populations with military bases nearby," Joyce Miles said. "I was very impressed with Shelley MacDermid's work with military families, as well as her strong leadership and research in the Center for Families."
MacDermid, a professor of child development and family studies and director of the Center for Families, said support from alumni makes her job easier.
"Joyce and Bob Miles have demonstrated an inspiring commitment to Purdue and to the Center for Families, and their contributions have been in the shadows too long," MacDermid said. "For years they have contributed their time and talent as members of the center's advisory council, and now they have added this marvelous gift. Our job at the center is to develop new knowledge that will help families meet the challenges of modern life through projects, such as the Nurturing Families Initiative, which focuses on child-care situations and the Indiana Family Impact Seminars, where our faculty contributes to legislation in Indiana. Their gift is a big boost to those efforts."
The Mileses said they would like to serve as an example to other Purdue alumni.
"One of the early philosophies I learned from the Felker conference was how much more we could accomplish by focusing our contributions, " Joyce Miles said. "This way, we're supporting an area where we can have the most impact and be directly involved. We want to show other alumni how to get involved so they can help, too."
Writer: Maggie Morris, (765)494-2432, maggiemorris@purdue.edu
Sources: Martin C. Jischke, (765) 494-9708
Dennis Savaiano, (765) 494-8213, savaiano@purdue.edu
Shelley MacDermid, (765) 494-6026, shelley@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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