Tom Holm

Tom Holm (Creek/Cherokee) came to The University of Arizona in 1980 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1986 and to Full Professor in 1995. In 1982 Professor Holm, Robert K. Thomas, Larry Evers, Vine Deloria, Jr., Emory Sekaquaptewa and N. Scott Momaday developed the M.A. program in American Indian Studies. In 1994, Professor Holm transferred full time to the American Indian Studies Program.

He taught over fifteen Native-related courses, nine of which he developed. He served as the chair of over thirty-five M.A. committees in both Political Science and American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona and sat on a number of doctoral committees in American Indian Studies and for the departments of History, Political Science, Education, and Comparative Cultural and Literary Studies. Professor Holm served as the chair of the first Ph.D. graduate—J. Diane Pearson—of the U of A American Indian Studies Program. Four doctoral students whose dissertations he supervised—Pearson, Jeff Boyd, Elise Marubbio, and Ian Record—have had their work published as books.

Twice the recipient of the Outstanding Native American faculty award, he had also been selected for an Excellence in Teaching Award during the U of A’s “Year of the Undergraduate” in 1988. In 2004 he was honored with the Graduate College’s Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring Award. Since receiving his degree from the University of Oklahoma, Professor Holm published over 50 articles, books, pamphlets, government reports, book reviews and essays, editorials and book chapters. His 1996 book, Strong Hearts, Wounded Souls: The Native American Veterans of the Vietnam War was a finalist for the Victor Turner Prize in ethnographic writing in Canada. His articles and book chapters have dealt with the historical militarization of Native American peoples and the development of the “Peoplehood Matrix” as a theoretical construct for Native American/Indigenous Peoples Studies. 

A contributor to a large number of historical dictionaries and encyclopedias, Professor Holm also had been called upon to add to forthcoming works on peoplehood, Native American diasporas, Native American leadership, and the late Vine Deloria’s contributions to scholarship. In 2006 he completed a book for younger readers, entitled Warriors and Code Talkers: Native Americans and World War II for Chelsea House/Facts on File, released in 2007. He was a reviewer for several academic presses and journals and is an advisory/editorial board member of Ethnic Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity, Red Ink and Wicazo Sa Review. In 2008, Professor Holms wrote a book entitled The Osage Rose,  His book, The Great Confusion in Indian Affairs: Native Americans and Whites in the Progressive Era was released in 2005 by the University of Texas Press. 

A Cherokee-Muskogee Creek from Oklahoma, Professor Holm served on numerous Native American boards, panels, and working groups. He was a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War and took part in several federal programs dealing with veterans’ affairs. In the 1980’s he served as an advisor for the Readjustment Counseling Services and as a member of the Native American commission on veterans’ affairs for the Veterans’ Administration. Professor Holm had also done presentations on Native American veterans before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. In 2001, he was appointed to the Council of One Hundred Chiefs, Leaders, and Scholars for the American Indian Graduate Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the organization that handles the Gates Millennium and American Indian Scholarship Fund scholarships.