Thomas G. Poole is Associate to the President for Administration at Penn State. In this capacity Dr. Poole serves as the President’s “chief-of-staff,” supervising the staff of the President’s office including the Office of the Board of Trustees. He is a member of the President’s Council, the University Faculty Senate, the Campus Environment Team, and the Emergency Management Group, and chairs the Facilities Naming Committee and the Honorary Degree Committee.
Prior to this position Dr. Poole served for nine years as Associate Vice Provost for Educational Equity at Penn State. In this role Dr. Poole helped to create and implement the University’s “Framework to Foster Diversity at Penn State: 1998–2003” and the second edition covering 2004-2009. He also chaired the Equal Opportunity Planning Committee and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration Committee.
Author of several articles, chapters, and reviews, Dr. Poole holds teaching appointments in both Religious Studies and African/African American Studies. His research and teaching focus on African American religion, Christian social ethics, social transformation, and cultural studies. Dr. Poole’s course offerings include The Life and Thought of Martin Luther King, Jr., Introduction to African American Religion, and The Development of the Spirituals and the Blues. Prior to his position in Educational Equity, Dr. Poole served for ten years as the director of Penn State’s Center for Ethics and Religious Affairs, for two years as director of Student Activities, and for one year as acting director of Student Unions.
Dr. Poole earned a B.A. from Roberts Wesleyan College (1974, religion and philosophy), the M.Div. from Colgate Rochester Divinity School/Crozer Theological Seminary (1977, theology and ethics), and a Ph.D. from Penn State (1984, religious social ethics). At Colgate Rochester/Crozer he studied with Dr. Kenneth L. Smith, who was one of Dr. King’s professors at Crozer in the early 1950s. Dr. Poole is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church (USA), a Fellow of the Society for Values in Higher Education and a member of several other national professional organizations.
In addition to his academic work, he is the host of The Blues on WPSU-FM, Penn State’s National Public Radio affiliate.