First preference to a second year Associate of Science student majoring in biology who is also pursuing a career in Biology or Environmental Sciences. Second preference to a graduating student from the Contemporary Music and Technology program. Third preference to a student attending the Castlegar Campus.
Don Mitchell was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on May 20, 1939. He was educated in Saskatoon and majored in biology at the University of Saskatchewan. He went on to receive a Masters Degree in plant physiology from the University of Toronto and completed his Ph.D in 1968 from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He was the recipient of a post-doctoral research fellowship at McMaster University.
Don and his wife Maureen moved to Castlegar in the summer of 1969 to begin his association with Selkirk College and the West Kootenay musical community. Don was revered and respected both as a dedicated instructor of biology and in the field of music as a biologist. He was a very gifted and versatile person and he shared those gifts freely. Don began by teaching introductory biology, botany, cell biology and biochemistry and readily accepted the new challenge of teaching nursing biology, a whole new specialty for him, at which he was very successful.
At the time of his death, which occurred at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver on February 24, 1995, Don was Department Head of environmental Sciences at the Castlegar Campus where he had taught for over 25 years.
As well as his academic and teaching skills, Don was especially able and considerate in dealing with colleagues. He chaired the Environmental Sciences Department in 1973-74. In 1979, he helped out as the Acting Head of Languages and Literature. Having helped to establish the music program, he become Department Chairman of Academic Studies and Performing Arts at DTUC from 1980 to 1984. More recently he was effective and very supportive Chairman of Environmental Sciences and Physical Education.
Don’s administrative talents were also demonstrated in his service over the years on many College committees, including serving twice as Chairman of the Provincial Biology Articulation Committee, and in the Provincial Health Educator’s Group.
Don had a very full and busy career at Selkirk College, and yet he had an equally busy parallel career in music in the Kootenays. He founded the Kokanee String Quartet, acted as concert master for the Kootenay Chamber Orchestra for twenty years, was an active member of the David Thompson University Centre Orchestra from 1981 to 1984, performed with the Selkirk Chamber Orchestra, and was also prominent in the Rossland Light Opera Players Orchestra where he served as a concert master many times since 1970. Earlier in his career Don had played first violin with the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra for several years.
Don’s recreational activities, time permitting, included tennis, cycling and skiing and listening to his numerous classical CDS. Don’s enthusiasm, optimism, humour and diplomacy were always in evidence and , even during the final days in his battle with cancer, remained with him.
Don’s mother and two sisters requested that the Don Mitchell Memorial Scholarship be established at Selkirk as a very tangible way of remembering Don and his many contributions to life at Selkirk and in the Kootenays.