CWU Residence Life Director gives back through regional and national leadership

Ian Miller has worked in Housing and Residence Life at Central Washington University for more than 18 years, and during that time, he has become heavily involved with the Northwest Association of College and University Housing Officers (NWACUHO).

Starting with his election to the position of products and services coordinator in 2010, which he held until 2012, Miller’s dedication to the organization helped him get elected president in 2023.

Always keen to further his own growth in order to better serve his student population, Miller had been looking for ways to get even more involved with NWACUHO when he got a phone call from fellow member Tiffany Firestone.

“I really wanted to further my professional development and get into a leadership role with the organization, so I was definitely thinking about applying, but I hadn’t made my decision yet,” the CWU Residence Life Director said. “When I got that call from my peer offering encouragement to do so, I knew it was time.”

NWACUHO, which represents housing officials in Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, and the Yukon territory, selects its presidents through self-nomination, followed by a majority vote among member institutions. Once elected, each president spends a year serving as president-elect before taking over as president the following year. They then round out their three-year tenure with a term as past-president.

As president from 2024-25, Miller turned his focus to several key areas of the organization, which all saw marked improvement under his leadership.

“There were a handful of things I really wanted to focus on improving during my time as president, including our election process, our awards, and our scholarships,” he said. “This most recent year, we had the highest number of applications to our elections that I can remember, and high turnout for our award nominations, too.”

Having wrapped up his time as past-president this February, Miller has found himself reflecting on the experience, and the value it has brought to his day-to-day duties at CWU.

“Leading and working with people in a volunteer-based environment is different than a traditional supervisory context,” he said. “Looking at leadership from that perspective means really encouraging my staff to become professionally involved and leading by example.”

Though his time as president may be over, Miller will continue giving back to ACUHO through a faculty position with the international organization’s James C. Graham National Housing Training Institute (NHTI) this summer. He fondly recalls his first time attending the institute in 2016.

“It was an amazing opportunity as a new professional to be able to attend and gain insights from completely new perspectives and get a glimpse of what lay ahead of me in the profession,” he said. “Since then, it’s always been a goal of mine to give back by being a faculty member within NHTI.”

Miller will oversee education on financial resources and the importance of finances in higher education for a fresh cohort of housing professionals just beginning their careers. He knows that giving back in this way is essential in keeping the profession learning and evolving with the times, and rising to meet whatever challenges might lay ahead.

“What we do is really important to helping students thrive,” Miller said. “If I can help provide leadership or mentorship in some small way, whether that’s at Central, regionally, or nationally, that really helps drive my passion to give back and engage with the future of our students.”