Maurice Mitchell; Educator, Administrator

Maurice B. Mitchell, an educator and administrator who spearheaded a major update of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, has died. He was 81.

Mitchell, who was also a former chairman of National Public Radio, died Saturday at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara.

Although the Depression forced him to drop out of New York University, Mitchell headed several educational organizations. Among those were the University of Denver and the Santa Barbara-based Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, which he merged with UC Santa Barbara in 1978.

“The principal difference between being self-educated and college-educated today,” he liked to tell critics, “is that the college tells you when you’re done.”

Mitchell began his career as an advertising salesman for various news media, interrupting that work for service in the Army Tank Corps during World War II.

After the war, he became interested in radio and joined station WTOP in Washington as sales manager and then general manager. He next went to the National Assn. of Broadcasters, where his talk to educate various radio sales staffs became known as “Mitch’s Pitch.”

Mitchell headed Muzak Corp. in the 1950s and then moved to the Chicago-based Encyclopaedia Britannica, which like Muzak was owned by Benton & Bowles.

From 1967 to 1977 he was chancellor of the University of Denver.

Mitchell arrived in Santa Barbara in 1977 to head the center, which fostered discussion and research of public issues. He was director and chairman of National Public Radio from 1977 to 1982.

Mitchell also co-founded and chaired Westview Press Inc., publisher of books on international politics, and helped set up the Annenberg Program on Communication Policy Studies in Washington.

At the time of his death, Mitchell was chairman of the Santa Barbara-based Pacific Basin Institute, which sponsors studies on Asian business and society.

Mitchell is survived by his wife, Linda; three children, Lee M. Mitchell and Deborah M. Regan of Glencoe, Ill., and Keith E. Mitchell of Denver, and three grandchildren.

The family has asked that memorial donations be made to the Maurice Mitchell Fund at the University of Denver, Denver, Colo. 80208.