Dr. Thomas Dickson has over 25 years of higher education and non-profit experience. His expertise centers around student supports to assist students to and through college and designing systems and cultures to support higher education professionals. His background has included academic advising, high impact practices, student voice, and first-generation student supports. Most recently, he directed efforts for a regional non-profit in designing supports for institutional transformation efforts of 18 different Hispanic Serving Institutions (universities and community colleges) as part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) funded Intermediares for Scale (IFS) initiative. 

• • Impostor Syndrome, Compassion Fatigue

  • Burnout, Institutional Change

  • Academic Advising and Advising Management

  • High Impact Practices and Experiential Learning

  • Engaging and Structuring Student Voice

  • Supporting First-Generation Students

  • Non-Profits & Collective Impact

Dr. Dickson has served in career counseling, academic advising, advising management, experiential learning, and leadership roles at Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, University of Arizona, and University of Calfornia, Riverside. Most recently he worked as Assistant Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at the University of California, Riverside overseeing student engagement programs, the academic resource center, and health professions advising center. Afterward, he expanded to regional efforts, serving in an executive leadership role as the Director for Institutional Support at Growing Inland Achievement (GIA), a regional non-profit focused on institutional transformation assistance and student supports to help more students get to and through a college degree. His non-profit work engaged all 18 colleges of the Inland Empire (San Bernardino and Riverside Counties) on institutional transformation efforts through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Intermediaries for Scale efforts. He helped facilitate introspective sessions and goal setting for institutional transformation and coordinated supports for each campus. Currently, he works for the Ohio Department of Higher Education coordinating a statewide network of institutions working on STEM corequisite reforms for the Ohio Strong Start in Science initiative. 

Dr. Dickson loves to teach and has taught over 75 course sections in support of undergraduate and graduate students. For undergraduates, he has taught democratic pedagogy, student leadership, first-year success, and career exploration courses focused heavily on supporting students with setting their life, career, and college goals. At the graduate level he has taught in higher education programs on student development theory, history of higher education, technology in higher education, and the history and philosophies of academic advising.

BACKGROUND AND EDUCATION
Tom grew up in Phoenix, AZ to a family of public servants. As a first-generation college student, he received the prestigious Leadership Scholarship Program award and enrolled at Arizona State University. After four years working as a student worker, engaging in over a dozen student organizations, and serving in various student leadership roles, he completed his baccalaureate in Psychology. From there, he pursued a master's degree in counseling education (CACREP) from Northern Arizona University and worked as a graduate assistant with the student union and the centralized academic advising and careeer counseling center. He then moved back to Tempe, working as an advisor and advising director at Arizona State University, while he utilized the generous employee tuition waiver to seek his doctorate in Higher and Postsecondary Education with a dissertation focused on the job functions and responsibilities of academic advisors.

Tom is married, has one child, two dogs, and a cat. The family relocated to the greater Cincinnati area in 2024 where they reside today. Tom enjoys punk rock, all things LEGO®, reading science fiction, and nerding out on higher education.