In Memoriam: Former UMass Amherst Chancellor Thomas Cole Jr.

Thomas W. Cole Jr., who served as chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2007-2008, died on April 14, 2022. He was 81.

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Cole came out of retirement to serve as chancellor on an interim basis from September 2007 to May 2008 prior to the selection of Robert Holub as chancellor. Cole was known for his quiet leadership style and for keeping the university on track with new construction projects and new faculty hires. He established Founders Day, a celebration of the history of UMass Amherst.

“There aren’t many opportunities that I would have come out of retirement for, but I have always had a deep feeling for the special nature and the academic quality of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst,” Cole said at the time of his appointment. “The University of Massachusetts has an extraordinary history and reputation. Any opportunity to be part of that isn’t something that you can dismiss. It is an institution that I have admired for many years. It truly is an institution that makes a difference – for Massachusetts and for the world.”

“I am saddened by the news of Dr. Cole’s passing,” said Chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy. “While I did not know him personally, I have heard from many people who have extremely fond memories of his time at UMass Amherst. It is truly remarkable to hear about the impact he had on our campus and the many people’s lives he touched in only a year.”

Cole had a distinguished career as both an educator and administrator at institutions of higher learning, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

In 1961, he graduated summa cum laude from Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, where his father was president. He earned a doctorate degree in organic chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1966 and began his professional career that year as an assistant professor of chemistry at Atlanta University, where he served in many positions, culminating as provost and vice president for academic affairs between 1979 and 1982. He also held visiting professorships at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

Cole served as the eighth president of West Virginia State University from 1982-86, leaving to become chancellor of the former West Virginia Board of Regents. The Cole Complex on WVSU’s campus is named for him.

Cole became Clark Atlanta University’s first president in 1989 following the consolidation of Clark College and Atlanta University in 1988. He served simultaneously as president of both institutions for a year prior to the consolidation. He continued to serve as president until 2002.

Clark Atlanta University is the largest of the United Negro College Fund institutions with an enrollment of 5,000 students. It is the only private historically Black college classified as a doctoral or research-intensive institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

During Cole’s tenure from 1989 until his retirement, Clark Atlanta’s budget grew from $40 million to $120 million. He is also credited with building enrollment, increasing the size of the faculty by more than 50 percent and raising more than $100 million during the school’s first capital campaign.

He lived in Atlanta with his wife, Judge Brenda Hill Cole.