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Lawrence F. Mitchell
Lecturer in Geography
Landrum 423
859-572-5461
Ph.D., University of Cincinnati, 1998
(urban, economic, historical, historic preservation)
Mitchelll@nku.edu
Dr. Mitchell began his cobblestone geography career when he graduated
from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale with a major in geography
and planning minor in 1969. He found a job as a city planner in Muskegon,
Michigan. There, his duties included land use planning, CBD and neighborhood
urban renewal, recreation and transportation planning, economic development,
historic preservation, and long range planning.
Wishing
to engage in other types of planning, he left Muskegon as the Assistant
Director of Planning for the rural environment of northern Vermont. He
became the planner for a small regional planning commission that worked
for the islands in Lake Champlain and Franklin County. Duties included
economic development, master plan preparation, and zoning for the urban,
village, and rural environments. After several years, he changed jobs
and became the city planner for the city of South Burlington, Vermont.
His activities there included work on the community master plan, zoning
and subdivision regulations, economic development, transportation planning,
and coordination with regional planning activities. While in Vermont,
he completed the required class work for a Master’s degree in geography
at the University of Vermont.
In 1975, he left Vermont to accept a position with a historic preservation
organization in Cincinnati, Ohio. Work within this organization included
directing the citywide historic inventory of Cincinnati, acting as a regional
preservation officer for the Ohio Historic Preservation Office, and directing
the history and architecture office for the organization. Activities included
the preparation of National Register nominations, urban and rural historic
and architectural surveys, and compliance for various federal regulations
for historic preservation. In 1980, he completed the requirements for
his advanced degree at the University of Vermont. His thesis dealt with
the historical geography of Cincinnati’s Over the Rhine neighborhood.
In 1982 he established his own consulting for historic preservation. Clients have included city and county governments, federal agencies, developers, and owners of historic buildings. Activities have included National Register nominations for buildings and districts, surveys, Historic American Building Survey (HABS) and Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) documentation, historic tax act applications, and conservation techniques, and preservation planning. He also began to work on a Ph.D. in geography at the University of Cincinnati. This degree was awarded in 1998 and his dissertation concerned the historic and architectural evolution of Cincinnati’s downtown and riverfront areas. By 1985 he was teaching geography classes at the University of Cincinnati. Geography courses included marketing, urban, economic, and historical.
For a period of time he was involved with sale and leasing of commercial
real estate, site location activities, and tourism development.
Teaching at Northern Kentucky University began in 1991 as a part time
lecturer for a world regional geography class. His present teaching duties
are as a full time lecturer teaching geography classes in world regional,
urban, economic, historic urban, and historic preservation.
