David Mader is a proud Miami University alumnus from the class of 1981. But he's not like many other Miami alums. He is one of 19 family members who have attended Miami.
The Mader family's legacy offers a different kind of Miami history, past the glossy admission pamphlets, a history more personal and familiar to alumni and current students.
This family legacy began in 1905 when Mader's grandfather and his sisters moved to an Oxford farm where they raised dairy cattle and honey bees.
David Mader's grandfather and his sisters attended McGuffey School and graduated from Miami. His grandfather, Raymond McDaniel King, graduated in 1926 while Raymond's sister, Elsie, graduated in 1923 and Mary in 1925. And that's just the beginning.
"My grandma Mader happened to be in attendance at the same time as my grandpa King and knew each other while there," David Mader said. "They didn't know then that their children would marry and continue this legacy."
Mader family parents, aunts, cousins and children all flooded Miami's brick buildings in the years to come. David Mader said his aunt and uncles were all at Miami at the same time and all knew each other. He said his aunt and uncle both took horseback riding. Twenty years later, Mader's sister took the class with the same professor.
And while the Mader family case is rare, legacies are not uncommon at Miami.
In recent years, about 33 percent of every incoming class has some sort of family connection at Miami, according to Jen Herman, senior associate director for the Office of Admission.
Many students have a variety of ties to the university, even if not through blood relation.
"Guys I went to school with have kids that are friends with my kids now," David Mader said. "My daughter is even best friends with one of my fraternity brother's daughters."
Ann Larson, senior associate director of the Office of Admission, attributed continuing Miami legacies to alumni's sentimental attachment to the university.
Enjoy what you're reading?
Signup for our newsletter
"I would just imagine that it has to do with the rich experience we hear from the alums," Larson said. "The positive experience they had at the university is prevalent with alums, so they're great advocates for Miami."
Looking at present with past
David Mader, Sr. said he draws a comparison between 1981, the year he graduated, with 2009, the year his son will graduate.
"Even when I was there, we were going through a recession," David Mader, Sr. said. "It was a tough time to get a job, much like now. The year that I graduated was similar to what is going on now with employment opportunities and the economy."
Mary Ellen King Hall, David Mader, Sr.'s aunt, attended Miami from 1958 to 1959, Miami's sesquicentennial year when Robert Frost was Miami's poet-in-residence. Hall also noted the hard economic times and the university.
"I don't know how they're (Miami) doing economically, but everyone is struggling," Hall said. "I love Miami, I hope it keeps its head above water."
Despite the economy, David Mader, Sr. said the Miami of today is better than when he went to school.
"It's better in a lot of aspects," he said. "As far as academics, I think they're doing a great job. The students are much more competitive and committed to their studies than my generation."
Miami legacy doesn't stop and end with alumni. Many professors are approaching 30 years of teaching with the university and like the Maders, have seen the university's additions and subtractions.
James Brock, professor of economics, said he has noticed a major change in the university climate since coming here in 1979.
"When I first came here, Miami seemed to offer private college quality at public college price and tuition," Brock said. "We seem to have moved away from this. It amounts to effectively saying, 'Come to Miami - our classes are just as awful as at OSU, but our tuition is a lot higher.'"
Brock said he is concerned faculty research continues to be overstressed at the expense of undergraduate teaching and students end up shortchanged.
Dennis Sullivan, a professor of economics, started teaching at Miami in 1973 and said he has noticed in increase in the students on campus.
He said he remembers when the parking garage was an open field where people could play intramural sports.
"The campus has grown substantially," Sullivan said. "There was a lot of open space that has been taken up by buildings and cars."
Another major change Sullivan said he has seen since 1973 is the increase in female students.
"The business school was overwhelmingly male when I came here," Sullivan said. "The noticeable thing is that women are much more academically and athletically integrated. There's something much more akin to gender equality than when I came on campus."
Despite size, social and classroom shifts, Sullivan said Miami students are in essence, the same.
"Miami is in some ways a traditional place," Sullivan said.
"Students that come here are students who value a sense of history and tradition."
Looking at present with past
David Mader, Sr. said he draws a comparison between 1981, the year he graduated, with 2009, the year his son will graduate.
"Even when I was there, we were going through a recession," David Mader, Sr. said. "It was a tough time to get a job, much like now. The year that I graduated was similar to what is going on now with employment opportunities and the economy."
Mary Ellen King Hall, David Mader, Sr.'s aunt, attended Miami from 1958 to 1959, Miami's sesquicentennial year when Robert Frost was Miami's poet-in-residence. Hall also noted the hard economic times and the university.
"I don't know how they're (Miami) doing economically, but everyone is struggling," Hall said. "I love Miami, I hope it keeps its head above water."
Despite the economy, David Mader, Sr. said the Miami of today is better than when he went to school.
"It's better in a lot of aspects," he said. "As far as academics, I think they're doing a great job. The students are much more competitive and committed to their studies than my generation."
Miami legacy doesn't stop and end with alumni. Many professors are approaching 30 years of teaching with the university and like the Maders, have seen the university's additions and subtractions.
James Brock, professor of economics, said he has noticed a major change in the university climate since coming here in 1979.
"When I first came here, Miami seemed to offer private college quality at public college price and tuition," Brock said. "We seem to have moved away from this. It amounts to effectively saying, 'Come to Miami - our classes are just as awful as at OSU, but our tuition is a lot higher.'"
Brock said he is concerned faculty research continues to be overstressed at the expense of undergraduate teaching and students end up shortchanged.
Dennis Sullivan, a professor of economics, started teaching at Miami in 1973 and said he has noticed in increase in the students on campus.
He said he remembers when the parking garage was an open field where people could play intramural sports.
"The campus has grown substantially," Sullivan said. "There was a lot of open space that has been taken up by buildings and cars."
Another major change Sullivan said he has seen since 1973 is the increase in female students.
"The business school was overwhelmingly male when I came here," Sullivan said. "The noticeable thing is that women are much more academically and athletically integrated. There's something much more akin to gender equality than when I came on campus."
Despite size, social and classroom shifts, Sullivan said Miami students are in essence, the same.
"Miami is in some ways a traditional place," Sullivan said.
"Students that come here are students who value a sense of history and tradition."
Pre destined for red and white
David L. Mader, David Mader, Sr.'s son and a Miami senior, said he always knew he would be a Redhawk.
"It's been an unspoken thing," he said. "We never really talked about it, but it was always assumed that I was going to come here."
David's father said he was proud the day he dropped him off.
"When I dropped my son here, I said to him, 'Mother Miami will take care of you now,'" David L. Mader said.
David Mader, Sr. said the "Mother Miami" feeling runs through Miami alums but also reinforces close family ties.
"Everybody, regardless of generation, has this 'Mother Miami' thing that's deep-rooted in us all," David Mader, Sr. said.
But the Mader family legacies don't just stop with choosing Miami. Many family members were also active in Greek life on campus. David L. Mader is in Sigma Chi, like his father. He said he also has an uncle who is a Sigma Phi Epsilon and another in Sigma Nu.
"At Christmas, we always joke around with each other about the different frats," he said.
While David L. Mader said he always knew he would come to Miami, he boasts an unconventional Miami acceptance.
"I was waitlisted and it came down to around the time of Valentine's Day," David L. Mader said. "I sent the admissions people a Valentine. I think that might have been why they let me in."
His younger sister, Karilyn Mader, a current first-year, said she had originally had other college plans - plans that didn't include Oxford and an 18-person family legacy. She said she wanted to try something new and not just follow the rest of her family. But, after Karilyn Mader said she heard so many positive stories about Miami and went on a college visit of her own, she couldn't help but fall in love with the alma mater of so many of her relatives.
Larson said alums are naturally the best marketing for the university.
"It's easy for alums to be promotional about their experience," Larson said. "The warmth that they experienced is certainly easy to promote."
Hall said she only came to the university for one year because the summer after, she got a job and met her husband.
Hall said like most in her family, she instantly fell in love with Miami.
"I love the university because there've been 19 people in my family that have gone there," Hall said.
Hall also said her love of Miami came from her father and two aunts' childhood and adolescence in Oxford.
"I love Miami and I enjoyed the year that I was there ... maybe a little too much," she said. "I wouldn't trade that year for anything."
David Mader, Sr. said through the passing years marking his graduation, he is still proud to call Miami his alma mater.
"They've done a great job of maintaining the integrity of the place, everything looks the way it should," he said.
Read More
How one professor and her classes are preserving Oxford’s Black history
By Sean Scott | March 20, 2024Jazma Sutton, an assistant professor of history, teaches The Black Midwest (HST 350Q) and Black Women in America (HST 450D) classes. In both courses, she has students working with the Smith Library of Regional History and Miami’s archives to document and preserve Black history in Oxford.
Miami faculty members recount Freedom Summer in new documentary
By Luke Macy | February 25, 2022After seven years of work, “Training for Freedom,” a documentary highlighting Oxford’s involvement in the Freedom Summer of 1964, premiered on PBS Western Reserve on Valentine’s Day.
“Documenting the COVID-19 Pandemic”: History in the making
By Alice Momany | August 29, 2021In March 2020, Miami University’s archives launched “Documenting the COVID-19 Pandemic,” a collection focused on life during the COVID-19 pandemic.