Peter V. Sampo

Peter V. Sampo (1931 – 27 May 2020 ) was an educator and college president. He was a founder of three colleges in total. Two of the colleges, of which he also served as the first president, were Catholic liberal arts colleges with curricula built on Great Books of Western culture, namely Magdalen College and Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, both in New Hampshire.

Life and career
Peter V. Sampo made his undergraduate studies at Saint Vincent College in Pennsylvania and earned a Ph.D. in political science at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

In 1974, Sampo, together with former high-school teacher John Meehan and businessman Francis Boucher, founded Magdalen College in Bedford, New Hampshire. Sampo was president of Magdalen from 1974 until 1977, and served as president emeritus of Magdalen College until his death on 27 May 2020.

In 1977, he left to start Cardinal Newman College in Missouri, which closed for financial reasons in 1985.

He then began work on Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in Merrimack, New Hampshire, offering a four-year liberal arts curriculum inspired by educators Donald and Louise Cowan. He served as president of Thomas More until 2006.

In 2009 he founded the Erasmus Institute of Liberal Arts, a liberal arts school in Canterbury, New Hampshire offering the Cowan curriculum formerly used at Thomas More College. In 2011, its students joined Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts along with Sampo and other faculty when the college agreed to offer the Cowan curriculum.

He died on 27 May 2020, after receiving last rites from the Magdalen College chaplain, Fr. Roger Boucher.

Honors
In 2007 the New England Board of Higher Education gave Sampo its "Higher Education Excellence" award.

The CiRCE Institute for classical education designated Sampo the 2008 winner of its Paideia Prize, named in honor of historian Russell Kirk.