Ex-UCLA Official to Be Occidental College President

Theodore R. Mitchell, the former UCLA vice chancellor who has been at the forefront of the local education reform movement, was named president of Occidental College in Eagle Rock on Thursday.

Mitchell, 43, now the vice president for education at the J. Paul Getty Trust, will take the reins of the 1,600-student liberal arts college July 1.

He replaces President John Brooks Slaughter, 64, who is retiring after a dozen years on the job.

Mitchell, the former dean of UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, immediately set ambitious goals for his stewardship of the college in northeast Los Angeles, between Glendale and Pasadena.

“I would like Occidental to be regarded as one of the two or three finest liberal arts institutions in America, and without peer among liberal arts institutions in urban settings,” he said.

Occidental’s 39-member board of trustees selected Mitchell after a nationwide search for the 12th president of the college, which is often ranked in the top tier of the nation’s liberal arts colleges.

The trustees were taken with Mitchell’s energy, his knack for public speaking and his community connections, said board Chairman Virginia G. Cushman. “He will face a number of challenges here, but we are confident his experience and administrative skills will serve him well.”

The 112-year-old private college has a remarkable track record of sending its students on to leading graduate and professional schools.

During Slaughter’s tenure, Occidental has become the most ethnically diverse liberal arts college in America. Whites now make up 52% of students; Asian Americans, 20%; Latinos, 16%; and African Americans, 5%.

It has also struggled with red ink. The college has a $4.1-million deficit, which has been creeping up over the years because of emergency repairs to aging buildings and a practice of offering generous financial aid packages to attract high-caliber students. Tuition, room and board now cost about $27,000 a year.

The trustees have committed up to $25 million of Occidental’s endowment earnings to set the college back on course and renovate the dorms, other buildings and grounds in need of a face lift.

“It’s no secret that Occidental has had a problem keeping its budget in balance,” Mitchell said. “That’s one of the first things that the faculty and I will have to address. But those fiscal issues will not keep us from growing and innovating and becoming even more linked to the Los Angeles community.”

Mitchell has been a key player in the public school reform movement in Los Angeles and California. He is on the boards of the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project (LAAMP) and the Los Angeles Education Alliance for Restructuring Now (LEARN).

He advises Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on educational policy. Last year, Change magazine named him one of the 40 “Young Leaders of the Academy.”

Mitchell did his undergraduate work at Stanford and earned a doctorate in education there. He spent a decade at Dartmouth, where he was a professor and chairman of the education department, before returning briefly to Stanford. He arrived at UCLA as education school dean, moved into upper management as a vice chancellor for academic planning and finally served as vice chancellor for external affairs.

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Theodore R. Mitchell

Mitchell was named the 12th president of Occidental College in Eagle Rock.

* Age: 43

* Residence: Los Angeles

* Education: Doctorate in education, master’s degree in history and bachelor’s degree in history and economics, all from Stanford University.

* Career highlights: Vice president for education and strategic initiatives at the J. Paul Getty Trust; vice chancellor for external affairs, UCLA; dean, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, UCLA; deputy to the president and the provost, Stanford University; professor of education and chairman of the department of education, Dartmouth College.

* Interests: Hiking

* Family: Wife, Christine Beckman; daughter, Caroline, 3 months old.