Muhlenberg College Announces Endowed Chair In Entrepreneurial Studies
Muhlenberg College has received a generous gift from William ’49 and Virginia Miers that will fully fund an endowed chair in entrepreneurial studies.Tuesday, October 23, 2007 01:59 PM
Miers, a member of the College’s Board of Trustees, is the advisory committee chair for Muhlenberg’s entrepreneurial studies program and previous president of Miers Insurance in Allentown. He was president of the Lehigh Association of Insurance Agents, president of the Independent Insurance Agents of Pennsylvania, founder and past chair for Project Invest of the Lehigh Valley, president of the Kiwanis Club of West Allentown, president of the Lehigh Country Club and former Trustee of the Lehigh Valley Hospital Center. He is a veteran of World War II and served as a pilot and flight officer in the U.S. Air Force from 1943-45.
Miers has been recognized several times by the College: he is a recipient of Muhlenberg College’s Alumni Tricorn Award for work in annual giving in 1988; an Alumni Achievement Award for Service to the College in 1994; the Alpha Tau Omega 20th Annual Claude T. Reno Alumni Achievement Award; and he received the 1999 Bruce R. Romig Reunion Prize.
The Miers are the grandparents of Sarah Painitz, a 1997 graduate of the College.
Established in 1993, Muhlenberg’s entrepreneurial studies program was the first of its kind at a liberal arts college. In May 2004, the program was ranked one of the top 100 in the nation, according to Entrepreneur magazine.
The William ’49 and Virginia Miers Chair in Entrepreneurial Studies is the third fully funded endowed professorship at the College. William Dunham is the Truman Koehler Professor of Mathematics and Daniel Klem is the Sarkis Acopian Professor of Ornithology & Conservation Biology.
