Mobility and Cosmopolitanism: Experiences of Oliver "Tripp" Miller (Eric Bae '24, Fall '23)
Few alumni, past or present, can boast a travel record as extensive as Oliver Otis "Tripp" Miller III. Both Tripp’s childhood and his working years were marked by frequent movement in pursuit of opportunity, education, and socio-economic betterment. After moving state to state in segregated southern schools during early adolescence, he spent his high school years in Massachusetts and New York. Starting from the story of his mother, this exhibit will highlight key influences in Tripp’s life before, during, and after Dartmouth, and how his experiences shaped his complex view of race, history, and culture. Tripp transferred to Dartmouth College from Hamilton College as a sophomore, entering the class of ’66. Though he intended to study political science, he wound up majoring in Philosophy. He focused on Epistemology and studied the works of Kant, Hegel, and Spinoza, among others. Tripp was a brother at the Chi Phi (now Chi Heorot) Fraternity at Dartmouth and is an alum of Stanford Graduate School of Business. Taking risks and pursuing opportunity, Tripp married his sixth-grade sweetheart, Jeannette, while at Stanford and moved to Basel with her to work as a financial analyst after graduation. Returning to the states a few years later, he and his wife found success in their respective fields, moving back to the upper-east side of New York City by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.