MODESTO, Calif., April 12, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- Professor and author Lee Ryan Miller has lived and worked all over the world. It was two years in Las Vegas, however, that had the most powerful impact on his professional life. In his sublimely witty and engaging book, Teaching Amidst the Neon Palm Trees (now available through AuthorHouse), Miller describes the series of events that led the college administration to offer him a year's salary to "go away."
Teaching Amidst the Neon Palm Trees is a true story of sex, money and politics that reads like a novel. Miller weaves an amusing tale of teaching at a community college in "Sin City" with the unpredictable twists and turns of a scandal involving some of the most powerful figures in the state, a scandal that threatens to end the careers of the top administrators at the college. Chock full of stories about prominent Las Vegas personalities, like U.S. Senator Harry Reid, Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, state college regent Steve Sisolak and college president Richard Moore, it provides a fascinating look at the maelstrom in which money, influence and education collide. Miller was a popular, young professor in Las Vegas. With the assistance of Sen. Reid, he set up an innovative study abroad program; with the help of student leaders, he made it possible for economically challenged students to participate. He had no idea that someone had other plans for the money earmarked for the needy students, someone who would stop at nothing to crush Miller's plans.
A recipient of a doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Miller has taught political science and economics at various colleges and universities in California, Nevada and Japan. He grew up in New York and San Diego, and has studied at Brandeis University, Oxford University and Middlebury College. He is the author of two books on political science and has written two epic fantasy novels. He currently resides in Modesto, Calif., where he writes full time.
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