Gordon E. "Mike" Michalson, Jr.
Dr. Gordon E. Michalson, Jr. has served as President of New College of Florida since July of 2001. As Dean and Warden, he was the College’s chief academic officer between 1992 and 1997. A specialist in the philosophy of religion, Dr. Michalson is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale, holds a Master’s degree from the Claremont School of Theology, and earned his Ph.D. “With Distinction” from Princeton University. Dr. Michalson taught at Davidson College from 1975-77, before beginning a fifteen year stint at Oberlin College, where he chaired the Religion Department and directed the Danenberg Oberlin-in-London program.
The author of four books and a noted authority on the religious thought of Immanuel Kant, he served as American consulting editor of The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought. The recipient of five research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, he was also an NEH “Distinguished Scholar” at Bucknell University. Dr. Michalson was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Brown University in 2001 and has also held visiting posts at Yale, Princeton, and Linacre College, Oxford. He is the Vice President of two Associations of college and university presidents: the Florida Association of Colleges and Universities, and the Southern University Conference. His other Board affiliations include, the Educational Alliance of the Suncoast Workforce Board, and “Sarasota Openly Plans for Excellence” (SCOPE).
Dr. Michalson lives in Sarasota with his wife, Susannah, and their son, Elliott.