the Ohio Academy of Science and served as president of the Ohio Academy in 1951. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, Phi Sigma, Sigma Gamma Epsilon (served as national vice president for 19 years), Omicron Delta Kappa and the Geology Society of America and he was past president of the American Geology Teachers organization. He served as Miami University's representative to the NCAA and was chairman of the Mid-American Conference. Fraternity involvement In Phi Kappa Tau, Shideler held almost every national office, including a term as national president in 1913-14. He was instrumental in bringing the fraternity's National Headquarters to Oxford in 1930, and the fraternity's national office was within a block of his home and campus office. The Shidelers lived in a historic Oxford home that had belonged to David Swing and was later used in filming the Jodie Foster movie Little Man Tate. Phi Kappa Tau's highest undergraduate award has been known as the Shideler Award and has been presented to the fraternity's outstanding graduating senior since 1938. Retirement and legacy He deferred his retirement from Miami three times, finally giving up the chairmanship of his department in 1956. When he retired the following year, he was the recipient of a John Hay Whitney Foundation grant to go to Hiram College to start a geology program there, much as he had done for Miami in 1920. He was professor of Geology at Hiram in 1957-58. In 1967 Miami University named its new earth-science building William H. Shideler Hall in his memory. The Karl Limper Geology Museum in Shideler Hall has as its basis the huge collection of specimens amassed by Dr. Shideler. He is buried in the Miami University plot of the Oxford Cemetery, next to his wife, Katherine Hoffman Shideler. The Shidelers had two sons, James Henry Shideler, a noted professor of history at the University of California-Davis, and William Watson Shideler. References Anson, Jack L., The Golden Jubilee History of Phi Kappa Tau, Lawhead Press, Athens Ohio: 1957 Ball, Charles T., From Old Main to a New Century: A History of Phi Kappa Tau, Heritage Publishers, Phoenix: 1996 External links 1886 births 1958 deaths Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences alumni Miami University alumni People from Middletown, Ohio 20th-century American geologists Miami University faculty Hiram College faculty Phi Kappa Tau founders Burials at Oxford Cemetery, Oxford, Ohio Fellows of the