Note to students: Please review the materials below and be respectful of the time that you request of our volunteer alumni. These individuals are looking forward to hearing from you and willing to answer your questions. As former Penn Staters themselves, they have a feel for what you’ve gone through and are willing to help you think about careers or other questions. Good luck!
Note to alums: These biographical statements come from what you have sent us, and have been edited for consistency of format. If you would like to have your name removed, edit or change your entry, or know another alumnus/a who would like to join the program, please email Donna Bahry, Professor and Head, at dlb46@psu.edu.
Rhodes Cook
rhodescook@aol.com
Rhodes Cook is the editor of a web site (http://www.rhodescook.com/) and a bimonthly political newsletter, The Rhodes Cook Letter; author of a variety of election-related books, and of a number of free-lance pieces for the Washington Post and Public Perspective, the latter a publication of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. He was also a contributing editor for Public Perspective.
He has published The Presidential Nominating Process: A Place for Us? (2004, Rowman & Littlefield); the 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002 editions of America Votes (by CQ Press), a biennial compilation of nationwide electoral data begun in the 1950s by Richard M. Scammon; U.S. Primary Elections 1995-1996 and 1997-1998; U.S. Presidential Primaries, 1968-1996, a compilation of county-by-county presidential primary results over the last third of the 20th century; as well as a pair of guidebooks on the presidential nominating process – Race for the Presidency, Winning the 2000 Nomination, and Race for the Presidency, Winning the 2004 Nomination. He is also co-author of How Congress Gets Elected. He graduated from Penn State in 1969 with a B.A. degree and received his M.A. in history in 1973. He joined the Washington-based Congressional Quarterly (CQ) in 1974 as a researcher and was a writer for the magazine from 1975 through 1997.
Charles Wellman Mitchell
cmitchel@lww.com
(h) 410-823-0830
(w) 410-528-4211
Charles Wellman Mitchell earned his B.A. from Penn State University in both History and Political Science. He later went on to earn an M.A. in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland. Mr. Mitchell is currently Executive Editor at Lipincott Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore, Maryland. Prior to that, he was Vice President and Editor-in-Chief at Urban & Schwarzenberg Medical Publishers. In addition to that Mr. Mitchell is a Freelance Writer for the Baltimore Sun and has been keynote speaker at several events. Furthermore, he has served as an instructor at the Community College of Baltimore and has contributed to numerous publications.