Communication
Ely Building Room 322
Thomas GardnerProfessor
Biography
Tom Gardner, MPA, Ph.D., is former department chair and professor of communication at Westfield State University, Westfield, MA. He has published in numerous national publications and has spoken at more than 100 campuses. He has been involved for the past 35 years with several national organizations to promote media literacy.
He was, for six years, managing director of the Media Education Foundation, which he helped develop into the nation’s leading producer and distributor of educational videos on media and culture. (See listings at ). He researched and co-produced the MEF video, “Framing an Execution: The Media and Mumia Abu-Jamal,” and "Reviving Ophelia" with Mary Pipher, and collaborated on others.
He earlier served as public affairs officer and editor of Harvard Divinity Bulletin for Harvard Divinity School, senior editor at the Harvard Institute for International Development, director of communications and public education for the Union of Concerned Scientists, and public relations director for the Alabama State Employees Association. A native southerner, Tom was a leading activist in the southern civil rights and national peace movements of the sixties and seventies, including the chairmanship of the Southern Student Organizing Committee. He later became an award-winning senior political reporter, columnist, and city editor at the Montgomery Advertiser.
He has been on the Westfield State faculty since 2001, and has served on the promotions, tenure and student affairs committees, as well as department committees.
Education
He holds a B.A. in sociology from the University of Virginia, an M.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Georgia, a Master in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Courses Taught
He has taught Communication Law, Advanced Public Relations, Persuasive Communication, Political Communication, Crime and Media, Introduction to Mass Communication, Advertising and Society, and Journalism and Society as well as a graduate course in the MPA program, Public Relations for Non-Profits and Government Agencies. He also teaches an Honors Seminar on media and memory related to the U.S.-Vietnam War era.
Publications
He is the author The Media Rhetoric of Law and Order: How ABC Framed the Mumia Abu-Jamal Story (Edwin Mellen Press, 2010) and chapters in Constructing America’s War Rhetoric (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008) and We Won’t Go: Personal Accounts of War Objectors (Beacon Press, 1967). Author of approximately 1,000 articles as a reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser, and as a freelance writer. His research interests center on media effects on policy in both the criminal justice and foreign policy arenas.
Professional Service
He served on the Board of Directors of the Men’s Resource Center for Change and serves on the national advisory board of Voice Male magazine. He served for four years on the School Council of Fort River Elementary School and six years on the board of the Paulo Freire Social Justice Charter School. He is a member of the International Communication Association, Society of Professional Journalists, and the National Soccer Coaches Association of America.
He is currently a coordinator of national online conferences aimed at preserving the history of social change movements in the South through donations to library archives and oral histories. There are archival collections in his name at the University of Virginia and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Honors and Awards:
"Keeper of the Dream Award" from Westfield State University, 2025.
