HONORING BEVERLY: ROBERT MITCHELL

Beverly Tierney Mitchell

Robert Mitchell’s gift to Niagara’s capital campaign is a love story.

A Sienna College graduate, Mitchell is providing $100,000 to fund the Beverly Tierney Mitchell Memorial Scholarship in memory of his wife, a member of Niagara’s Class of 1973. He signed the first check for the endowment on Aug. 8, 2006, her birthday.
However, Mitchell didn’t want to wait for the endowment to be ready to pay out a $5,000 scholarship each year. So he’s also funding a $5,000 current-use scholarship, starting this year, which will go to a student who shares Beverly’s commitment to academic excellence, community service and the pursuit of studies in natural sciences or business.

Beverly Tierney Mitchell died Feb. 17, 1998, after being hit by a commercial van while standing on a pedestrian island in downtown Albany. She was just 46.

She graduated summa cum laude from Niagara’s College of Arts and Sciences and was valedictorian when she graduated summa cum laude with the Class of 1987 at Albany Law School of Union University. She went on to become a partner in a very prestigious law firm.

When Beverly left Niagara, she took home the Vincentian spirit and made it part of her life. She was active in numerous professional and community organizations, and took the time to help the needy and work with mentally challenged children and adults. A positive, well-organized person, she took all the activity in stride.

“I don’t remember her ever saying anything mean about anybody in the whole time I knew her,” Robert Mitchell said of his wife of 20 years. “If the scholarship can help somebody else come out of Niagara with that same type of attitude toward using their education to help and benefit others besides themselves, that would be good.”
So how did a Sienna graduate who became a builder and a Niagara graduate who became a lawyer meet? They were apartment neighbors.

“She was waiting at the mailbox one day and I opened the front door too fast and literally knocked her off her feet,” Mitchell said. They were married four years later.

Mitchell believes the scholarship is a fitting way to memorialize his wife.

“Unlike a monument in a cemetery which very few persons see, with a scholarship, maybe they will pause to think … I wonder who that person was?” he said. “It will allow her to keep doing some good for somebody as long as the scholarship is available.”