Northfield Mount Hermon Receives $50 Million Bequest

GILL — Northfield Mount Hermon has received its largest-ever gift and one of the largest donations ever to an independent school. The $50 million bequest from the late John Mitchell, who graduated in 1956, will endow need-based scholarships and expand support for faculty, key objectives of the school’s $275 million fundraising campaign.

Announcing the gift to the NMH community, Head of School Brian Hargrove and Monie Hardwick, NMH board chair, described it as “an act of generosity from an exceptionally accomplished alumnus who was modest in his profile but profound in his gratitude for the education he received.”

John Mitchell arrived at the Mount Hermon School for Boys in 1952 as a scholarship student from an unheated home in a small town in Eastern Mass. Recognized early as academically gifted, Mitchell participated in several sports and thrived in his NMH courses, graduating as class valedictorian. Following NMH, he earned degrees from Yale and NYU and went on to a long and distinguished career as president of Global Manufacturing at Pfizer.

“John credited his time at NMH as a turning point in his life and held tight to the habits and values nurtured at NMH: hard work, critical thinking, lifelong learning, and service,” Hargrove and Hardwick said.

Mitchell later served on the NMH board of trustees, where he brought a particular focus on finances and campus planning. With characteristic pragmatism and modesty, he made numerous gifts to top off the budget for faculty housing projects, athletics facilities, the early-childhood center, and related campus improvements.