About the President

Dr. Gordon E. "Mike" Michalson, Jr. has served as President of New College of Florida since July 2001.  As Dean and Warden, he was the College’s chief academic officer between 1992 and 1997.  A specialist in the philosophy of religion, President Michalson graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a degree in history, holds a master's degree from Claremont School of Theology and earned his Ph.D. “With Distinction” from Princeton University. 

Dr. Michalson taught at Davidson College from 1975-77, before moving to 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 served as a visiting professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Brown University in 2001.  He also has held visiting posts at Yale, Princeton and Linacre College, Oxford. 

Dr. Michalson is a past president of the Florida Association of Colleges and Universities (FACU) and the Southern University Conference and is a commissioner of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the regional accreditation agency for higher education.  His other board affiliations include the Leroy Collins Institute, Sarasota Chamber of Commerce and the Educational Alliance of the Suncoast Workforce Board.  He lives in Sarasota with his wife, Susannah, and their son, Elliott.