Office: Pearsons Hall 205
Phone: (417) 873-7891
E-Mail: rmiller@drury.edu
Monday
Noon – 1 p.m.
3 – 5 p.m.
Wednesday
Noon – 1 p.m.
3 – 4 p.m.
Thursday
Noon – 3 p.m.
Friday
Noon – 1 p.m.
Dr. Miller holds a doctoral degree in sociology and teaches a number of classes in her department. Some of the courses she regularly teaches include gender, crime and justice, global social problems, human ecology, minority groups, political sociology, senior seminar, social problems, sociological theory, and sociology of the family. She has also taught the signature Alpha Seminar class for Drury University’s nationally-recognized general studies program, Global Perspectives for the 21 st Century.
A few years ago, Dr. Miller served as Theme Year Director for the university. Her program was called “For the Common Good: Private Interest & Global Citizenship,” and she was able to successfully bring a number of phenomenal speakers to the campus. More information about the convocation series Dr. Miller’s directed may be found at The Speakers Corner, but a short list of presenters included Susane Almanza, Bryonn Bain, Kevin Bales, Barbara Ehrenreich, Winona LaDuke, Ralph Nadar, Jim Wallis, and Howard Zinn.
An active researcher, Dr. Miller received the university Scholarship Award in 2000. She is presently conducting research on graduate education in her discipline and is a co-investigator on a three-year department grant from the National Science Foundation. This approximately $148,000 grant supports the implementation and assessment of a model curriculum designed to enhance scientific literacy. In recent years, Dr. Miller has published in a number of peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of African American Men , Journal of Comparative Family Studies, and Journal of Family Issues. In these works, some of the issues she explored included how epilepsy affects children’s social and psychological adjustment, the impact of African American male incarceration on their families, and non-traditional family patterns.
She has also written several book chapters and four books, Till Death Do Us Part: a Multicultural Anthology on Marriage (1999), With This Ring: Divorce, Intimacy, and Cohabitation From a Multicultural Perspective (2000), Impacts of Incarceration on the African American Family (2003), and For the Common Good: a Critical Examination of Law and Social Control (2004). These works explore such topics as gender, marriage/family, deviance, and multiculturalism.
Drury University faculty member since 1999
Associate Professor since 2001