Greensburg, PA- Seton Hill University will award its first Medal of Distinction to Paul Michael "Mickey" Pohl, former Seton Hill Board Chairman, for his leadership in Catholic education. Seton Hill President JoAnne Boyle and the University's Board of Trustees Chair Michele Ridge will present the medal at an event in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, February 12th at the Duquesne Club. Malcolm S. Forbes, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer of Forbes, Inc. and the Editor-in-Chief of "Forbes," the business magazine with a circulation of 850,000, will make special remarks. Proceeds from the evening will benefit the newly established Chairman's Scholarship Fund, which was initiated in honor of Pohl. The scholarship will be awarded to an outstanding Seton Hill student based on academic merit and financial need.

Pohl is a litigation partner and the Partner-In-Charge of the Pittsburgh Office of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, one of the world's largest law firms. He graduated from Princeton University in 1970 and served in the U.S. Marine Corps during 1971-72. He received the Navy Achievement Medal for his service at Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps in Washington, D.C. Pohl graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1975.

During Pohl's tenure as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Seton Hill University, Seton Hill achieved university status from the Pennsylvania Department of Education; expanded its enrollment to 1,500 students; completed the largest capital and endowment fund raising effort in its history; began renovations to the historic St. Joseph Chapel on the Seton Hill Campus; restored the Administration Building; added graduate degree programs, including the master of business administration and the master of arts in writing popular fiction (the latter one of the few programs of its kind in the country;) and enhanced its national and international outreach. He guided the institution through a re-examination of its Catholic identity and its relationship with the Sisters of Charity, leading to the creation of a new and refreshed commitment to its Catholic mission.

Pohl is a member of the American Law Institute, the American Bar Association and the Allegheny County Bar Association. He serves as a director of Jura Corporation and Lord Corporation and has been a guest lecturer in various trial advocacy programs. He participates on the board of the National Fatherhood Initiative and the Foundation Maria Thron in Austria. Pohl is a past member of the Board of Catholic Charities of Pittsburgh, the Boards of Franciscan University and Gannon University. He was appointed in 1998 by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to its Continuing Legal Education Board, and he was appointed in 2000 by the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania as its representative on the Lawyers Advisory Committee for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. In 2002 he was appointed by the chief judge of the Third Circuit to serve as the chair of that advisory committee.

For more information about the event, please call 724-830-1005. For more information about Seton Hill, please visit www.setonhill.edu.