Jerome “Jerry” M. Mileur received a bachelor degree in Speech from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale in 1955. He received a Master’s in Labor & Industrial Relations from the University of Illinois-Urbana in 1958 and a Ph.D. in Government from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale in 1971. He taught at Rochester Institute of Technology, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, and the University of Michigan before joining the faculty in the Government Department and the Bureau of Government Research at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1967. He was promoted to full professor in 1982 and retired in 2004. For 37 years, He served as director of the undergraduate and graduate programs, as director of the MPA program, as coordinator of internship and honors programs, as presiding officer of the Faculty Sentate, and as department chair, during which time he was instrumental in founding the department’s international relations club. During his time at UMass, his love for baseball was readily apparent. Professor Mileur owned a minor league baseball team and coordinated a one-year interdisciplinary course on race in America timed with the fiftieth anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball.