When Thomas Poon, Ph.D., LMU’s 17^th president, began his term on June 1, 2025, he brought with him deep knowledge of the university and years of experience. Poon was appointed provost in 2017 and later was named executive vice president. Under his leadership, 21 new academic programs have been introduced at LMU in fields including business analytics and computer science. During that time, LMU has experienced more than an 80% increase in support for research and creative endeavors. By training, Poon is a scientist, having earned a B.S. in chemistry from Fairfield University and Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles. He was interviewed by Joseph Wakelee-Lynch, editor of LMU Magazine.

When you were named president, scuttlebutt on some parts of campus said that Ignatian spirituality is very close to your heart, exceptionally so for a president of a university with a Jesuit tradition. Is that so, and what in your life brought that about?

Some might think that it’s because I went to Fairfield University, a Jesuit university. In fact, it’s the formation (intentional spiritual and leadership development in the Jesuit tradition) I received here at LMU, after becoming provost, that made Ignatian spirituality near and dear to my heart. Some of the formation I received included serving on the Board of Directors of the Beijing Center in Beijing, China, and being the chair of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities Chief Academic Officers Council for three years. Also, doing the Spiritual Exercises, sometimes called the 19^th Annotation, with Randy Roche, S.J.

But the experience that really deepened my sense of Ignatian spirituality is the AJCU’s Ignatian Colleagues Program, which grounds administrators and faculty in the Jesuit and Catholic tradition of higher education. Two elements have been especially important to me. First, a 10-day silent retreat at a retreat center in Massachusetts and, second an immersion trip now called International Encounter. Our cohort visited Arizona, where we spoke to people involved with the Kino Border Initiative. But we also spoke with ranchers, border patrol personnel, and, of course, we were in community with migrants and deportees. We met people where they are, as the Jesuit saying goes. It was transformative.

I also want to add that the charisms of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange have deepened my faith and spirituality: “To seek God in all things” is very Jesuit. “To make God known and loved so that all may have life.” “To be mindful of the works and connections of the dear neighbor.” These also resonate with me and dovetail with Ignatian spirituality.

When Timothy Law Snyder came to LMU as president, he identified institutional visibility as a top priority, and he directed resources toward that goal. What do you consider a top institutional priority?

Ensuring that LMU remains uniquely LMU means offering an education that’s grounded in mission and future-facing. It means taking advantage of what’s unique to LMU: our vocation; our mission; our sense of community; our amazing faculty and staff and everything they bring to the education of our students; our proximity to Hollywood, Silicon Beach, and aerospace; and our partnerships with industry and the Los Angeles Rams, for example. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also include being in the largest archdiocese in the country and our strong relationship with the archdiocese and Archbishop José Gomez and his team.

We’ll animate what I call our community-centered mission, which includes providing global education opportunities for our students. We’ll double down on the teacher-scholar model, which also makes us unique in higher education. LMU faculty are passionate teachers who believe teaching is important and for whom scholarship is also important. Many institutions in higher education value one over the other. Here, we value both equally. Our students benefit immensely from our teacher-scholar model.

To go back to your question about visibility, it’s great if we do all this, but if we don’t shout that out loud and let others know, that’s a lost opportunity — and that’s why visibility matters. We have to let job applicants know. We have to let our alumni and other internal audiences know, because we think this approach can and should be replicated in higher education. But if no one knows about it, how can that even begin to happen? Fortunately, President Snyder, through his initiative, set us on a good course. So, we can keep doing what we’re doing while prioritizing new areas.

Higher education institutions have been under attack by the current U.S. administration. Harvard, UCLA and Columbia are examples. Catholic universities have mostly evaded the crosshairs. Should Catholic universities be prepared to face similar pressures?

Many of the things we value in Catholic, Jesuit, and Marymount higher education are under heightened scrutiny. We value global engagement and having a diverse student body that includes international students. We value study abroad programs, and we want to carry out our mission: to form ethical leaders, welcome international scholars, and ensure that all students learn in a safe, inclusive environment. We are prepared to explain and defend that mission.

Some say that the administration’s higher education and immigration policies together are persuading prospective international students that enrolling in a U.S. university has become an unwise choice. Those students are an important population, and especially for any tuition-driven university. What is LMU doing to support those students?

We have an amazing Office of International Students and Scholars. They work to make sure that our international students are safe and supported. They’re providing advice at every turn, with every executive order or federal government action that affects international students.

One thing that I want to stress is that our international students are an integral part of our community. We value the culture and diversity that they bring to our campus. I’ve met with many of our international students. Many students come from first-generation families. We provide holistic student services, a whole-person education, and lots of access to well-being and belonging programs. We have a safe campus. And, of course, we have excellent academic programs through which students can get an education they can take anywhere. I hope that the education we provide will continue to attract students even as our national landscape is becoming potentially more hostile to international students.

Not only is DEI under attack from the federal government, basic research also is under attack, with promised research funds being taken away. LMU itself has lost a few research grants. As an R2 research institution, is LMU’s research activity in jeopardy?

The teacher-scholar model is part of our DNA, so our research identity is resilient. The national funding landscape is fluid — some awards have faced pauses or new conditions — but we have successfully navigated appeals through standard agency processes and letters of support. Our priority is expanding internal support for tenure-line faculty, seed funding, and professional development.

In a labor dispute with non-tenure-track faculty, LMU this past September decided to, first, no longer engage with the union that NTT faculty in several of the LMU colleges voted to join and, second, to invoke a religious exemption to National Labor Relations Board guidelines for private universities. How does the decision to no longer engage with that union square with Catholic Social Teaching, which has long defended the rights of workers to join unions?

I’m glad you brought that up, because this is an important issue. Catholic social teaching affirms the dignity of work and the rights of workers, and LMU embraces those principles. We recognize the concerns that shaped recent organizing efforts, and I pledge that we will address them with decisive action, urgency, candor, and care. This decision reflects our belief that the best way to honor those values at LMU is through direct engagement with faculty. After careful discernment, our Board invoked the university’s religious exemption from the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board. That decision does not change our commitments to our NTT and visiting faculty. We immediately reinstated merit raises, retroactive to August. For NTT faculty, these increases average up to 7.8% this year. We’re also strengthening shared governance, expanding opportunities for longer-term appointments, and investing in professional development. We will continue structured dialogue through Faculty Senate channels with published milestones and data on our Path Forward website. Our goal is to honor workers’ dignity while sustaining LMU’s Catholic, Jesuit, and Marymount mission.

AI is shaping up to be the next technology wave that generates massive new wealth, much as we saw with the communications technology revolution of the 1990s. Others see it as dangerous because it may weaken the critical thinking skills of students and contribute to the dumbing down of society. That range — from anticipation to deep skepticism — exists among the LMU faculty. What is your view of the impact of AI, and how should a Jesuit-Marymount university respond?

I’ve met with faculty about AI, and there’s less resistance than some expect. But I agree: AI is both exciting and sobering. It has immense potential to transform whole industries, but it also raises concerns about critical thinking and creativity. I feel that LMU’s responsibility as a Catholic university in the Jesuit and Marymount traditions uniquely positions us to prepare students to leverage AI wisely and to shape the moral frameworks around its use. LMU equips students to ask not just “Can we?” but “Should we? And how?” I believe that the formation and discernment that we provide here will be critical at this moment for our students and our graduates.

Pope Leo XIV has argued that AI must serve human interests, meaning all humans, not the fortunate few. But technological innovation usually produces huge benefits very quickly for those who are wealthy, while the benefits for others lag behind, as does the establishment of moral and ethical guardrails. Is LMU taking steps to establish the moral guardrails as it teaches uses of AI?

That’s a great question, and I agree with Pope Leo. We’re not immune to those implications. We’ve heard too many stories about massive layoffs in certain industries ostensibly attributed to the efficiencies created by AI, or about great reductions in hiring entry-level jobs, for example. We, especially our leadership here at LMU, are taking this seriously and thinking about AI in ethical and moral ways, and also in ways that respect community. For example, in an LMU leadership retreat, we’ve made AI a topic of focus, discussion, and workshops. Staff members are building their capacity to integrate and leverage AI tools for greater efficiency and to strategically accelerate their work. We’re providing those opportunities so that we can do our work better, not with fewer people. Faculty are incorporating AI into their courses and classrooms, but there’s also an emphasis on ethics. A lot of this work is rooted in Ignatian discernment. That’s why LMU is well-positioned to establish guardrails to ensure that AI serves human dignity and the common good.

The humanities have a strong role to play in the future, because if AI, as proponents proclaim, is going to change society, then who better to mold and shape that society than graduates who have studied the humanities, history, anthropology, ethics, philosophy, the social sciences, or economics. With knowledge in those areas, our graduates can be very strong proponents in helping to shape our new society that will be heavily impacted not just by generative AI but physical AI — artificial intelligence applied to machines. Self-driving cars are an example. Self-driving cars hold tremendous potential to improve society, reduce accidents, and provide more access to different parts of the world. We’ll need laws, rules, and practices for this development. An LMU liberal arts education will set up our graduates to do it justly.

We sometimes talk about “the Canon,” or the Western Canon, a short list of books considered the essential works of a culture. What three books are in Tom Poon’s personal canon?

One is “St. Ignatius’ Own Story As Told to Luis Gonzalez de Camara.” It’s a story Ignatius told Fr. Luis about how he was formed and came to be St. Ignatius. I love that you hear it as a first-person account. This book really deepened my appreciation of Ignatian spirituality.

Another is “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” by Richard Rhodes, a book that reminds me that science is a profoundly human endeavor. It can’t be divorced from everything that makes us human. Science is not divorced from the humanities, social sciences, politics, and ethical dilemmas. Rhodes’ book also shows something very important: that collaboration makes anything possible. I strongly believe in collaboration because it brings forth the best of everyone in solving a problem.

The third book is “The Periodic Table” by Primo Levi, an amazing writer. “The Periodic Table” combines science, storytelling, and ethics. He shows how chemistry is not just about molecules but also about human resilience, memory, and the search for meaning. It really affirms that science and humanity are inseparable. It’s also a book about his experiences growing up as a scientist and also being incarcerated at Auschwitz. It’s a deeply emotional book that speaks to me as a scientist.

A question about the cost of higher education. The cost of a university education increases year by year, with no change in a steadily upward trend. Are you concerned that higher education’s path is leading toward an economic bubble?

I am concerned. I’m worried that if left unaddressed, higher education will price itself out of reach. At LMU, we’re forming partnerships and engaging in philanthropy to provide access and affordability to our most vulnerable students and their families. Making higher education more accessible isn’t only a financial issue but a justice issue as well. Higher education also must transform itself to provide a better return on investment, which is why we are engaging in partnerships to benefit our students. It’s why, for example, our board of regents’ singular focus this year is to position LMU so that every student can access an internship, a research opportunity, or another experiential opportunity that connects with their major and allows them to gain real-world experience. These are things that make higher education valuable to society and individuals. Studies have shown that lifetime earnings for those without a college degree are not even comparable to those with a college degree. We have to do a better job showing society our value, not just financial value, but through the graduates that we form and how they contribute to society through their work, volunteerism, activism, and other ways. LMU does that well, but we have to do a better job. We have to try to find ways to make an LMU education affordable to our students.

In college athletics, player compensation opportunities — NIL money — have become the primary concern of high-level athletes when deciding on attending or transferring to a university. What does the athletic future of LMU look like to you if we can’t compete in terms of player compensation with institutions in elite conferences such as the Power 4 conferences?

Without a doubt, NIL has changed athletics dramatically. While LMU may not match the compensation power of institutions in the top conferences, we can compete by offering a distinctive student-athlete experience. Much like the teacher-scholar model, the student-athlete identity is an intertwined identity. At LMU, our student-athletes are formed as whole persons on the court, in the classroom, and in the community. I’ve had the opportunity to engage with student-athletes and the dedicated coaches and their staffs who carry out our mission by educating the whole person. I think holistic formation is our competitive edge. It won’t deter the most elite athletes from going to Power 4 institutions seeking a professional athletic career. Many Division I athletes hope to have a career as a professional athlete. We’re providing those chances, but we’re also providing other aspects of their education, such that if that professional career doesn’t materialize, they’ll still be able to have a fruitful and fulfilling life and career in any field that they choose. So, we’re trying to provide adjacent opportunities not just for student-athletes but all our students who want a career in sports but maybe not as professional athletes. That’s why our partnership with the Los Angeles Rams is so important. Our students have benefited from more than 170 internships with the Rams in areas including media, entertainment, and finance, for example. Through those opportunities, our students interested in a professional sports career can see that their career can be impactful, whether they’re on the court or the field, or not.

The question every president of a university with a Jesuit tradition should be prepared to answer: What’s your definition of the word “magis”?

I define magis as striving for “the more” — the greater depth of purpose and excellence that moves us closer to who we are called to be. It’s not simply about doing more or achieving the greatest good in a utilitarian sense, but about discerning what matters most and committing ourselves fully to it.

At LMU, magis comes alive when each member of our community seeks that deeper purpose in their own way: when our coaches help student-athletes grow as whole persons; when our faculty pursue excellence in teaching and formation; when our facilities staff and public safety team care for our campus with devotion and hospitality. Together, these acts reflect a shared pursuit of “the more” — a holistic, mission-driven striving to form our students and transform the world for the better.