Cole’s Festschrift

Dr. Thomas Cole Festschrift Celebration 17

Photos by Dwight Andrews/Office of Communications

The John P. McGovern, MD, Center for Humanities and Ethics hosts a Festschrift Celebration in honor of Thomas R. Cole, PhD, founding director of the center. The conference consisted of a dozen scholars who gave papers touching on key areas of Cole’s academic contributions; aging, life stories, racism, medical humanities as a field, health humanities films and documentaries, and literature.

Cole was recruited as founding director of the McGovern Center, then known as the Health, Humanities, and Human Spirit Program. His work has included many articles and books on the history of aging and humanistic gerontology, civil rights and desegregation, and several documentaries and textbooks on faculty health and medical humanities education.