Who Is Ken Millard?
Longtime biology professor Ken Millard, PhD., sat down with us for a question-and-answer session…

What led you to become an educator?
I enjoy learning, and I love the college environment. I’ve also been inspired by some really great teachers.

If you weren’t an educator, what other career field might you have chosen and why?
I’d probably be a geologist, or even just a prospector. Anything to spend as much time as possible out among rocks.

What is something about you that would surprise most people?
I have no idea. What you see is pretty much what you get.

What was your most instructive blunder or blind alley?
Do you mean just today? Or in my whole life? I make them pretty frequently, and I hope that I learn something from each. I changed careers back nearly 40 years ago, and that was quite instructive, because I learned quite a bit in my first career, both about the world and about myself.

What was the last book you read?
I just read Stone of Heaven, which is a history of the intermingling of the jade trade with the history of Burma and China. Pretty depressing, actually.

What’s your “uniform” or the typical outfit you wear every day?
Whatever is on top of the pile when I wake up in the morning.

If I weren’t from the United States, I would want to be a native of …
Someplace hot and dry — perhaps Australia or Mexico — because deserts are best, because you can see the structure of the earth, and get at the rocks easily.

Who would you love to have as a student?
Whoever I have right now. I really enjoy students, and the present ones suit me just fine.

You’re stuck in an airport for a five-hour flight delay. How would you keep busy?
I would read.

What did you want to be or what did you like to do when you were a kid?
I became interested in the natural world very early, and I loved hiking in the woods, often alone, even when I was very young. Biology and geology have always been very close to the center of my interests.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
When I was young and realized that I was in love, I talked to my dad about it. He said that if that
was so, I should get married and get on with it. So I did.

What’s the one magazine that will never be found in your home?
I don’t know that I can answer this one. I can’t control what magazines my wife orders.

What is your most poignant moment as an educator?
This is unfortunately easy to remember. I arrived at an 8 a.m. class on a Monday morning and learned that a student who I knew well and respected enormously had been killed in an automobile accident a few hours earlier while returning to school.