Tim Miller
Hope for Rwanda
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Timothy Miller ’06
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Our Ten Questions
- 1. What is your favorite flavor of Babcock ice cream?
Chocolate chip cookie dough - 2. What do you most miss about campus?
lazy afternoons at the Memorial Union terrace - 3. What is your favorite mode of transportation?
In Wisconsin, walking (it's free!) and public transportation. In Africa, a motorcycle. In Europe, a train. - 4. What items would you take to a desert island?
water purifier, pen and paper - 5. What was your first job?
kitchen slave and bus boy at a local restaurant - 6. Who is your hero?
Shelva Mathews, a true saint and servant of the Lord. - 7. What are you reading now?
Great Speeches of the 20th Century - 8. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
In the face of adversity, one must have courage and patience. - 9. What's on your iPod?
I don't own an iPod, and hopefully never will. - 10. What is your proudest UW achievement?
Leading a team of engineering students to Africa for a month-long service trip.
Profile
Timothy Miller ’06
UW major: Civil engineering
Career: Teacher
Tim Miller has spent the past year teaching math and science to girls in Rwanda. He first visited the war-torn country in 2004, and was deeply touched by its poverty and destitution. He returned a few months after earning his UW degree, determined to improve people’s lives through education.
He lived in rural Murumba, a village destroyed during the genocide in 1994 that still lacks most modern amenities such as electricity, clean water, reliable transportation and communication networks. Because many Rwandan men were killed in the genocide, Miller saw the country’s hope for the future in the education of young women.
Living in a convent with five Catholic nuns, Miller taught courses in physics and scientific drawing at the College of Immaculate Conception to more than 400 students, all girls. “My students inspired me to be a better person, to live with an attitude of stewardship, to lead with integrity, to forgive, and to remain hopeful that the world can be a better place,” he says. “I believe that these students will someday be the doctors, engineers and leaders of Rwanda. Their enthusiasm is infectious, their hope courageous.”
Miller also managed several small-scale engineering projects to improve the local water and energy infrastructure. “It turns out my degree in civil engineering paid off after all,” he says. Miller has returned to Madison to begin graduate studies in September 2008.
His first visit to Rwanda was with the UW chapter of Engineers Without Borders, made possible through a Wisconsin Idea Fellowship from the Morgridge Center for Public Service. Through the organization, Miller developed leadership skills, serving as chapter president and the Rwanda project manager. He says the experience had a profound and lasting impact: teaching him how to apply classroom theories to solve real-world problems and an ethic of responsibility to his work, with a deeper appreciation of cultures other than his own.
Tim's Essay
I would not be where I am today, in the rural Rwandan community of Muramba, without the opportunities afforded me at UW-Madison. Allow me first to describe the setting where I now find myself and then explain how my career at UW-Madison helped get me here.
Located in Rwanda’s northwestern province, Muramba is a desperately poor village without most modern amenities. Without question, it is a developing community in a developing country. Electricity, clean water, and reliable transportation and communication networks are luxuries here. I teach courses in physics and scientific drawing at the College of the Immaculate Conception, or CIC-Muramba. I have over 400 students, all girls. My students inspire me to be a better person, to live with an attitude of stewardship, to lead with integrity, to forgive, and to remain hopeful that today the world can be a better place as a result of my efforts and the efforts of many others, including my students. I firmly believe that these students will soon be the doctors, engineers and leaders of Rwanda. Their enthusiasm is infectious, their hope courageous. Their enthusiasm and hope, projected from my students to me, are the fruits of my labors as an undergraduate at UW-Madison.
My experience in Rwanda has been much more than teaching physics classes. In addition to teaching, I have managed several small-scale engineering projects focused on improving local water and energy infrastructure. It turns out my degree in civil engineering paid off after all. Believe me: teaching physics to a few hundred Rwandan girls and managing water and energy development projects is challenging enough. Couple these responsibilities with the experience of living in a community experiencing extreme poverty and suffering a legacy of genocide and the challenge grows tremendously. To top it off, I live in a convent with five Catholic nuns. Let’s just say the lifestyle here is very different from that of Madison.
My undergraduate career at UW-Madison began six years ago in 2001 and concluded in December 2006. While my UW-Madison diploma attests to some measure of academic success, it was the extracurricular experiences that had a more profound and lasting impact on me. My participation in the Engineers Without Borders (EWB) organization first introduced me to development work in Rwanda. In EWB I learned to lead, first as president and then as Rwanda project manager. I was able to draw on a deeply rewarding and enlightening experience at the LeaderShape Institute in fulfilling my EWB leadership responsibilities. I gained a fresh perspective on community service and service-learning by working with the Morgridge Center for Public Service. In fact, it was a Wisconsin Idea Fellowship, administered by the Morgridge Center, which enabled me to travel to Rwanda (for the first time) during the summer of 2004. I believe that these extracurricular activities, in addition to a demanding and rigorous engineering curriculum, allowed me to step out into the world for the first time, proudly carrying the banner of the Wisconsin Idea into the heart of Africa.
So how has my UW-Madison experience impacted my life? In short, I gained opportunities to apply classroom theories and exercises to real-world problems in Madison, in Wisconsin, and in Africa. I learned how to apply an ethic of service to my work. I gained a broader worldview and a deeper appreciation of cultures other than my own. My career at UW-Madison provided me with a stepping stone to reach the poorest of the poor, orphans and widows, students seeking a chance for a better life, a country seeking forgiveness and a path forward. To be sure, the path I have chosen has not been easy. But as Robert Frost wrote, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”