Prior to being appointed as the sixth President of Alvernia College, Dr. Thomas F. Flynn served at the National Center for Higher Education in Washington, D.C., as Senior Advisor for the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), the major service organization for private colleges and universities with over 525 member institutions. Dr. Flynn directed two projects for CIC. Having led a national symposium on the relation between liberal arts education and professional leadership, involving corporate leaders and university presidents, he has recently completed a report for distribution to educational, business, and civic leaders. He also directed “President-Trustee Dialogues,” a series of regional symposia that in its first year brought together almost 100 presidents and trustee leaders to examine governance and institutional strategy.

Previously, Dr. Flynn served nine years at Millikin University (IL), a comprehensive, university of 2,500 students, initially as Provost and subsequently as President and Professor of English. He also spent fourteen years on the faculty of Mount Saint Mary's College (MD), where he was promoted from Assistant to Associate to Professor of English and served as Dean of Undergraduate Studies and later as Dean of the College.

A native of Boston, he earned his B.A. in English at Boston College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in American Culture from the University of Michigan. He is a graduate of Harvard University's Institute of Educational Management and New Presidents' Institute and has spent a sabbatical in the President's Office at Georgetown University, where he assisted on strategic planning and a symposium on Ex Corde Ecclesiae.

Dr. Flynn has written and spoken extensively on contemporary higher education, including invited presentations for the national professional associations. He has been a consultant-evaluator for the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Lilly Endowment and for over forty institutions and has expertise in curriculum and faculty development, enrollment management and marketing, strategic planning, and board governance. He has also been an advocate for service learning, for the integration of liberal arts and professional education, and for partnerships between universities and their communities. Prior to his administrative career, his teaching and scholarship centered on Modern American literature and culture. He has continued to teach regularly, offering courses in modern cross-cultural fiction and the literature of modern war as well as interdisciplinary seminars on the 1920s and 1960s.

Active in economic development and interracial dialogue, Dr. Flynn has been an officer on state-wide higher education boards. He has also been a member of several national boards, including the American Council of Education's coordinating board for all sectors of higher education. Honored in 2001 as an academic leader by the Council of Independent Colleges, he considers his most important professional award to be a Distinguished Teaching Award received in 1978 while at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Flynn is married, with one child. His wife, Helen Sheimo Flynn, a native South Dakotan and also a former graduate student from the University of Michigan, is a technology specialist and librarian enjoying her third career and an avid reader of mysteries. Their son, Daniel, is a college junior at Xavier University (OH). The Flynns' share interest in music, sports, travel, and the beach.

Updated: November 9, 2006

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