Professor, Departments of History and Economics
1978
Bio:
Herman Joseph Muller was born in Cleveland Ohio in 1909 where he was educated through high school. He joined the Society of Jesus in Milford Ohio in 1928. His philosophy studies were competed at St. Louis University and West Baden College Indiana and as a scholastic he taught English, Latin, and History. He was ordained at West Baden College in 1941. Before joining University of Detroit he taught history, religion, and economics, serving as a Professor of History at West Baden College, Xavier University, Cincinnati and John Carroll University, Cleveland.
Degrees earned by Fr. Muller include a Bachelor of Arts in Latin, Xavier University, Cincinnati (1932); Masters of Arts in History, Loyola University, Chicago (1936); Licentiate in Sacred Theology, St. Louis University, St. Louis (1943); and Ph.D. in History, Loyola University, Chicago (1950).
Fr. Muller joined the University of Detroit Department of History as an Associate Professor with tenure in 1956 and was named chairman of the department in 1959, a post he held until 1967. He was promoted to full Professor in 1964. He was an authority on early modern European history, particularly the reformation and enlightment periods.
From 1968-1972 Fr. Muller initiated and served as the resident coordinator of University of Detroit’s Dublin Ireland Program. In a University news release of October 25, 1974 it was written that the program “offers students majoring in the arts an opportunity to live and study in Ireland during their junior year. In addition to gaining degree credits the students are enabled to travel in the British Isles or on the Continent during Christmas and East class recesses.”
While the on-site coordinator, Fr. Muller was a guest lecturer at University College Dublin in Renaissance and the period of the Reformation. He traveled, getting into a large number of homes and clubs and places of business to learn about Dublin Georgian. He also visit Spain to visit pre-suppression Jesuit churches with a view to furthering his work in the contribution of Jesuits to the field of architecture.
Fr. Muller was an early innovator in distance education. In the same news release it was noted that he was "a Detroit area pioneer in the use of public television as an educational vehicle. He began broadcasting history classes on Channel 56 in 1957 during television's pre-tape era. Fr. Muller and Dr. Norbert Gossman presented 83 live television classes on the "Renaissance Man" that year. Fr. Muller continued broadcasting with Channel 56 until 1967." The syllabus for The Development of Western Civilization History II states, "There is a tendency while watching TV to sit back, relax, and let the performer go all out to please the viewer. In presenting TV courses, the lecturer or demonstrator does not look upon himself as a performer or entertainer. He looks upon himself as a teacher and upon his viewers as students, and he treats them accordingly."
Fr. Muller’s scholarly works have been published in the Michigan Academician, Historian, The Historical Bulletin, Mid-America, New Cathokic Encyclopedia and the Catholic Youth Encyclopedia. He was included in Who’s Who in America and Dictionary of International Biography.
In 1974, Fr. Muller was named Centennial Historian for the University of Detroit. One of his most significant contributions was authoring the history book of the University’s past: The University of Detroit, 1877-1977 in commemoration of the University’s centennial. He researched and wrote the book in two years even while teaching full time. In a letter from O.B. Hardison, Jr., Director of The Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C., Hardison congratulated Fr. Muller on the centennial History. He wrote “It is a contribution in which everyone associated with Detroit can take pride. I am sure, moreover, that it will have important consequences in two respects. By reminding all of us -- Trustees, faculty, students and alumni – of the traditions which the University has inherited, it will provide strength and a sense of direction for the future. And by recording the extraordinary accomplishments of the University over the past century it will contribute directly to the Centennial development campaign. The book is a rare combination of the careful scholarship of the historian with the love for an institution of a faculty member who has been intimately associated with it for many years. I am sure that the pleasure which your readers find in it is a reflection of the pleasure which…you must have derived from writing it.
For many years he served as both a supporter and chaplain for the baseball and basketball teams, both ladies’ and men’s. He was one of the chaplains in the dormitory system and moderator of Phi Alpha Theta, national honor society in history.
Fr. Muller was a member of the American Historical Association, the American Catholic Historical Association, the Michigan Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters and the Committee for the Advancement of Negro History. He served on the Board of the latter committee and as the chairman of the History-Political Science section of the Michigan Academy.
Fr. Herman Muller was honored with Professor Emeritus status by Malcolm T. Carron, S.J., President, University of Detroit in 1978.