Thomas Dieter, Director, College and Career Pathways Institute, LaGuardia Community College brings close to ten years of experience working in adult education, teacher training, and innovative college readiness and first-year programming. Since his days as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer teaching English as a foreign language in Romania, Thomas has dedicated himself to improving educational access and success for underrepresented and disconnected populations all over the world. Over the years, Thomas has worked with hundreds of leaders, instructors and workforce professionals to strengthen their classroom practices and program designs, and Thomas has proudly served as a leading member of LaGuardia Community College’s department of Pre-College Academic Programming since 2012.
Before joining the College and Career Pathways Institute (CCPI), Thomas was an instructional and program leader for CUNY Start, an innovative alternative to traditional remediation that provides intensive academic preparation in integrated reading and writing, pre-college math and college success advisement. In this capacity, Thomas developed reading and writing curriculum, modeled effective best-practices in the classroom for new faculty, and provided ongoing coaching and feedback to the program’s team of teachers, advisors and support staff.
Today, Thomas brings this experience to his position as the manager of CCPI, where his primary role is to support the reach and impact of the Institute. He develops and delivers a range of professional-development services tailored to the needs of educators, workforce-development professionals and program leaders, and Thomas promotes change initiatives and capacity-building at his local campus as well. He co-chairs the LaGuardia Developmental Mathematics Council, a cross-campus coalition dedicated to improving student outcomes in basic-skills and gatekeeper math courses, and he is directing CCPI’s newest campus project, the Pre-College Financial Health Early Alert Initiative, which seeks to reduce student dropout at LaGuardia due to financial barriers.
Thomas earned an MA in Rhetoric and Writing Studies from Oregon State University (2011) and a BA in English and Philosophy from Trinity University (2007).
