Milton Monroe Reigelman
Cowan Professor of English, Emeritus
Expertise
Governor’s Scholars Programs - Overseas programs at colleges and universities - Broad-based humanities programs - Herman Melville and Moby Dick; A widely experienced and much-honored professor of English and the humanities who has crossed over into top administrative posts in strategic planning, international study, and external affairs; Acting president during 1997-98. Twice a Fulbright lecturer abroad (the University of Warsaw in Poland and Kiev University in Ukraine); A year in France directing Centre’s residential overseas program in Strasbourg; Publisher and co-founder of the Danville Quarterly from 1974-77.
Biography
Milton Reigelman retired in 2017 after serving many roles at Centre, including a year (1997-98) as Acting President, Vice President for Planning and Resources (1991-96), Special Assistant to the President (1998-2017), and Director of Centre Global, formerly known as the Centre for Global Citizenship (1998-2017). Though he remained an English and humanities professor throughout his career, at different times he also oversaw student life, development, admissions and financial aid, planning, alumni affairs, communications, and the Norton Center for the Arts.
In a 1988 Louisville Courier-Journal Magazine cover story, he was featured as one of the three “toughest professors” in Kentucky. He was the Centre recipient of the Rookie of the Year award, the Eric Mount student appreciation award, and the David Hughes Outstanding Professor award twice. Before becoming the Associate Dean, he twice chaired the division of humanities and was named Centre’s second National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Professor of Humanities. He has also served as president of many local organizations, including the Friends of the Boyle County Library, the Danville Rotary Club, Phi Beta Kappa, and Anaconda: the Danville Literary and Social Club founded in 1839.
Reigelman lectured for a year on American literature and culture as the US government Senior Fulbright Professor at the University of Warsaw in Poland and for a half-year at Kiev State University in Ukraine while both countries were Communist members of the U.S.S.R.’s Warsaw Pact. While directing Centre’s study-abroad programs he led the Centre-in-London and Centre-in-France program in Strasbourg several times. Before coming to Centre he had worked for The Washington Post and been a Captain in Army Intelligence. After arriving in Danville he spent summers at N.E.H. seminars at Yale and U.N.C./Chapel hill and was Dean of the Kentucky Governor’s Scholars Program for fourteen years. During 2007-2009 he coordinated a series of Energizing Kentucky conferences for Berea, Centre, the University of Louisville, and the University of Kentucky.
In 2007 he co-chaired the International Melville Conference in Poland that featured 110 leading scholars from 22 countries. With his Polish co-editor Pawel Jedrzejko, he published two books (Secret Sharers in 2011 and Hearts of Darkness in 2010) that brought together innovative Melville essays from scholars around the world. Earlier in his career he published The Midland: A Venture in Literary Regionalism and co-edited the Danville Quarterly. The subjects of his other publications include Henry James, Faulkner, T. S. Eliot, Emerson, George Eliot, Ed McClanahan, and John Le Carre. In 2019 he privately published two volumes of A Loose and Baggy Monster of a Memoir: 1740-2019.