Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced the first director of the newly created Washington Center for Civics, Culture and Statesmanship at West Virginia University will be Patrick Miller, an associate professor of philosophy at Duquesne.
“Dr. Miller and the Washington Center are going to push back against the woke ideology that’s infected our schools, help return higher education to its true purpose,” Morrisey said.
“The Washington Center is going to educate and inform but, most importantly, give students the tools they need to reach their own conclusions.”
At today’s introduction, Miller said the role feels like a natural fit.
“Above all, I hope to give the people of this state what they asked for: a place where the young of West Virginia can learn about our civilization and our country in an atmosphere of respect and even of reverence,” he said.
“We should revere this civilization. In my view it is the greatest, and like it or not our country is the leader of it. We need to renew it in that spirit.”
During his introductory remarks, Miller spoke several times about a crisis in the country without specifically defining his meaning.
“The crisis has many components, but I think the eruption recently of political violence in this country is a sign that there is a crisis,” Miller said after reporter Steven Allen Adams of the Ogden Newspapers asked him to elaborate on what he means.
“To talk about its precise nature and its causes, this is not the time for that.”
Miller’s books include “Becoming God: Pure Reason in Early Greek Philosophy” and “Truth, Trump, Tyranny: Plato and the Sophists in an Era of ‘Alternative Facts.'”
One of Miller’s more recent publications for an outlet called “PostLiberal Order” focused on how to grapple with culture issues not contemplated by the U.S. Constitution.
“I aim to show how little our life together has to do with the document signed by Washington and the other Founding Fathers, but rather than calling for an impossible return to that document and its liberal principles, I will conclude with some proposals for another, future constitution that might renew our justice, wisdom, and power,” he wrote.
Legislation that passed earlier this year created the center, giving the governor the authority to select the first director for a five-year term.
“The director shall be an expert on the western tradition, the American founding, and American constitutional thought, and shall have publicly demonstrated, through speeches, publications, or presentations, a commitment to the purposes, goals, and policies of the center,” according to the law establishing the center.
The state Legislature passed a measure establishing the Washington Center this past regular session with a goal “to enrich the curriculum in American constitutional studies, including the core texts, influential thinkers, and great debates of western civilization.”
The legislation required WVU to provide the center with reasonable infrastructure, classroom space and office space and permitting the appointment of at least five tenure track faculty.
The Washington Center will receive $1.5 million in state funding in the upcoming fiscal year to support faculty recruitment, curriculum development, and public programming.
Delegate Pat McGeehan, the House majority leader and Ph.D. student of philosophy at Duquesne, praised Miller’s strong academic background.
“And I am very confident that he will carry on that legacy of the Western classic tradition into the Washington Center with not only his leadership but also with the professors he will choose and hire into the center going forward,” McGeehan said.
The center’s establishment called for the director to report straight to WVU’s president, provost, and vice president of academic affairs with curriculum to be approved by the university’s board of governors.
“I’m so pleased that WVU now gets to host this Washington Center where we will have the chance to engage in debate,” WVU President Michael Benson said, elaborating that being a university means not being “monolithic” in terms of thought.
“And I really look forward to Dr. Miller’s leadership in setting a tone for WVU becoming a leader in having those debates, having those discussions, and leading out, as the governor said, in some really important ways as we celebrate what’s so great about this country.”