Thomas O. Erb

Ph.D. (University of Florida)
Boswell Distinguished University Professor
Asbury 24
(765) 658-5096
thomaserb@depauw.edu

From 1994 to 2009, Tom Erb edited the Middle School Journal for the National Middle School Association. Having graduated from DePauw in 1967, he returned to DePauw in 2005-06 as the Allen University Distinguished Professor of Education Studies. Prior to that he served as Professor of Teaching & Leadership at the University of Kansas rom 1978 to 2005. At KU, Professor Erb was engaged in middle grades teacher education, in addition to teaching curriculum theory, team organization, and curriculum planning in the Graduate School. His published work has been focused in three areas: interdisciplinary teaming, middle grades teacher education, and middle school curriculum. In 2008 he received the John H. Lounsbury Award, the National Middle School Association's highest honor, for distinguished contributions to middle grades education. He taught for seven years in three different middle schools on two continents: Wilmette IL Public Schools, University of Chicago Laboratory School, and Escola Inglesa de Luanda, Angola, West Africa. Born and raised in Fort Wayne, he graduated from South Side High School in 1963 and was designated a distinguished alumnus in 2007. He is the father of four grown children and grandfather of two. He has been married to Karen Simmons Erb for 38 years.