Penn alum Andrea Mitchell announces she is stepping back from MSNBC daily anchor role

Penn alumna and College graduate Andrea Mitchell announced that she will be stepping back from her daily anchor position at MSNBC.

Mitchell had served as the anchor for "Andrea Mitchell Reports" since 2008, the longest running daytime program on MSNBC. She will be stepping back from her position as anchor on “Andrea Mitchell Reports” to take on a broader role with the NBCU News Group as NBC News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent and chief Washington correspondent.

Mitchell, a 1967 College of Liberal Arts for Women graduate, studied English during her time at Penn, where she worked as part of the student-run WXPN radio station and later held the position of program director at WXPN. She began her work as a correspondent for NBC in 1978, during which she covered five presidencies, affairs in Congress, and developments in foreign policy.

As an alum, Mitchell’s continued presence can be seen in various aspects of Penn’s campus. She is the namesake for the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy, which was established in 2017 and holds a variety of programming related to democratic values, ideas, and institutions. Mitchell was also designated as a trustee emerita the same year after 20 years of serving as a Penn trustee.

Mitchell currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Overseers of the School of Arts and Sciences, and has spoken at several occasions on campus in the past two decades: the Annenberg School for Communication graduate ceremony in 1997, the inauguration of Penn President Amy Gutmann in 2004, and at Penn’s 262nd Commencement in 2018, among others.

“In my heart and soul, I am first and foremost a reporter and a storyteller,” Mitchell said on-air. “After 16 years of being in the anchor chair, I want time to do more of what I love the most — more time connecting, listening, and reporting in the field.”