Brian C. Mitchell

A native of Lowell, Massachusetts, Mitchell graduated from Keith Academy and from Merrimack College in 1974. He received his PhD from the University of Rochester, and is an expert in 19th-century urban, ethnic, and labor history. He wrote The Paddy Camps: The Irish of Lowell, 1821–1861, a critically acclaimed book examining those fields. As a professor, he chaired the history department at Anna Maria College and taught at George Mason University, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Bentley College, Lesley College, New Hampshire College (now Southern New Hampshire University), and the University of Rochester. He was awarded the Haskell Award for Distinguished Teaching in the Humanities from Lowell and the Albert J. Beveridge Grant for Research in American History from the American Historical Association. ==Career==

Mitchell worked as a program officer in the Division of State Programs of the National Endowment for the Humanities and became president of the Council of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania (CICU) in 1991. Washington & Jefferson College Upon assuming the presidency of Washington and Jefferson College in 1998, Mitchell was thrust into a long-simmering schism between the city of Washington, Pennsylvania and the college. During a courtesy visit to local officials early in his tenure, Mitchell was berated by the officials for 45 minutes, blaming the college "for everything that had gone wrong in the last 50 years.” Shortly thereafter, Washington & Jefferson was awarded a $50,000 grant from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation to develop a coherent plan, entitled the "Blueprint for Collaboration," to detail goals and benchmarks for the future to help the college and the city work together on economic development, environmental protection, and historic preservation. The plan included provisions for the college to offer more academic opportunities for the community and to explore moving its bookstore into the downtown area, develop student housing in the downtown area, and to expand student use of the downtown eating, shopping, and visiting destinations. In June 2001, Mitchell and the Washington and Jefferson trustees adopted a new master plan to remodel the campus and its educational environment, building modifications and a campus beautification program. Edvance Foundation In July 2010, Mitchell partnered with Kurt M. Thiede to establish the Edvance Foundation, a nonprofit organization bringing expertise, resources, ingenuity, and foresight to institutions of higher education across the U.S. Later career Mitchell serves as the chair of the Board of Trustees of Merrimack College. He is also a member of the board of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation in Chicago and has served as a trustee of Washington and Jefferson College. He co-authored two books on higher education leadership and governance, How to Run a College: A Practical Guide for Trustees, Faculty, Administrators, and Policymakers and Leadership Matters: Confronting the Hard Choices Facing Higher Education (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018, 2022, and ). Mitchell was honored with the 2010 national award for individual contributions to American higher education by the Posse Foundation in New York City in May 2010. == References ==