Woodbury University President to Retire

Wayne L. Miller, president of Woodbury University in Burbank, announced this week that he will retire next year.

Miller, 64, told the university’s Board of Trustees at a meeting Tuesday that he will retire Sept. 30, 1989, after serving 10 years as president. He previously served as undergraduate vice president at the University of La Verne, near Pomona.

“It has been a very satisfying experience with positive outcomes,” Miller said of his tenure at the 104-year-old business college.

In 1987, Miller supervised Woodbury’s move from its downtown location on Wilshire Boulevard, where it had been housed in two buildings for 50 years, to a sprawling 22-acre site in Burbank.

The move proved crucial to the university’s survival, said George Hensel, chairman of the university’s Board of Trustees. Before relocating, the school had experienced a drastic decline in enrollment, a reduction of services and was in danger of losing state accreditation, he said.

Since the move, Hensel said, the university has achieved full accreditation and has seen a jump in enrollment, from 642 students in 1986 to 900 students in 1988. The university also has been issued $17 million in Los Angeles city bond money to construct new classrooms and a second dormitory.

Hensel credited the university’s turnaround to Miller. “None of us likes to see him go,” he said.

A search committee has been formed to find a replacement for Miller, he said.