Nancy Thomas

Nancy Thomas works with campuses, education associations, public agencies, and communities organizing dialogue-to-change programs. She also directs the Democracy Imperative at the University of New Hampshire, a network of academics and practitioners committed to strengthening public life and deliberative democracy in and through higher education. Her experience includes campus and community conflict prevention and resolution, organizational change, strategic planning, faculty development, diversity initiatives, curriculum reform, ethics training, and community building. She is a seasoned organizer and facilitator of community dialogues, forums, think tanks, working groups, and other discourse communities.

She has served as director of democracy initiatives and the religion and public life initiative for the Society for Values in Higher Education; special assistant to the president for legal and policy affairs at Western New England College; director of Listening to Communities for the American Council on Education; adjunct faculty member at the Graduate College of Education, University of Massachusetts Boston; interim associate vice provost for multicultural and international affairs at the University of Connecticut; and facilitator for the American Association for Higher Education's community of practice on dialogue and deliberation as pedagogical tools.

Nancy graduated from St. Lawrence University (AB Government, 1979), Case Western Reserve University School of Law (JD 1984), and Harvard Graduate School of Education (EdD 1996).