Website for Russell S. Thompson, Ph.D.

Associate Director

Missouri Center for Safe Schools

UMKC School of Education, Suite 024

(816) 235-5656

thompsonrs@umkc.edu

I am the Associate Director for the Missouri Center for Safe Schools, where I have worked since the Center was established in August 1995.   The Missouri Center for Safe Schools, which is located at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Education, is funded by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.  The Center serves all 524 school districts in Missouri. 

Prior to establishing the Missouri Center for Safe Schools, I served for 5 years as the Coordinator of Staff Development and Conflict Resolution for the Kansas City, Missouri School District.

I am a 1970 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point.  I hold a BS degree in engineering from West Point, a MS degree in systems management from the University of Southern California, and a Ph.D. in Urban Education Leadership and Public Administration from UMKC.  I served in the United States Army (Infantry Branch) from 1970 to 1990, retiring at the rank lieutenant colonel.  My last position with the Army was as a member of the faculty of the Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

In addition to my work with school districts in violence prevention and safety, I serve as the chairman of the Stop Violence Program for Inmates, part of STOP Violence! of Kansas City.  This program serves inmate populations in six of the seven major facilities of the Kansas Department of Corrections.  Through participation in this program, inmates learn the skills and develop the motivation to make nonviolent choices.  I also volunteers my time conducting debriefings with children who have witnessed violence for the Psychological First Aid program in Kansas City, Missouri.  

Courses Offered

I facilitated the development of a graduate level course in mediation for the University of Missouri-Kansas City and am the principal instructor of that course.  Students from the schools of education and law and the college of arts and sciences attend the course.  I am also the author of a course on violence prevention in schools that will be made available through the University of Missouri Center for Distance and Independent Study.

For course information about one of my courses, click the appropriate box in one of the right three columns:

You are visitor number