Dr. Gail L. Thompson, Dr. Gail L. Thompson, a Professor at the Claremont Graduate University, has written six books: A Brighter Day: How Parents Can Help African American Youth; The Power of One: How You Can Help or Harm African American Students; Up Where We Belong: Helping African American and Latino Students Rise in School and in Life; African American Teens Discuss Their Schooling Experiences; What African American Parents Want Educators to Know; and Through Ebony Eyes: What Teachers Need to Know but are Afraid to Ask About African American Students, a book that has received a considerable amount of attention from educators, talk show hosts, and news reporters across the nation; She co-wrote a seventh book, Exposing the Culture of Arrogance in the Academy: A Blueprint for Increasing Black Faculty Satisfaction, with Dr. Angela Louque.

Dr. Thompson has written chapters that were published in three edited books, Adolescent Literacy: Field Tested Effective Solutions for Every Classroom; From Work-Family Balance to Work-Family Interaction: Changing the Metaphor, and Narrowing the Achievement Gap: Strategies for Educating Latino, Black, and Asian Students.   One of her essays was published in USA Today, and her work has been published in numerous academic journals.   Dr. Thompson has appeared on PBS television’s Tony Brown’s Journal, National Public Radio, Tavis Smiley’s radio show, WURD, KPCC, WBAI, WSOU, WAMO, KJLH, and KXAM. She has been interviewed for Scholastic Instructor and Inside Higher Education, and has been quoted in numerous newspaper articles. She has served as a reviewer for the Educational Broadcasting Network, Millmark Education, Houghton Mifflin, and several academic journals, and has done presentations, keynote addresses, workshops, and consultant work throughout the U.S. and two presentations in Canada.  Dr. Thompson is married to Rufus, an educator, and they have three children, Dr. Nafissa Thompson-Spires, NaChe’, a college undergraduate, and Stephen, a college undergraduate.