Meet our April Authors

Tom McMillan

Tom McMillan recently retired after a 43-year career in sports media and marketing, including 25 years as VP/Communications for the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League. Now he spends his time studying and writing about his true passion: history.

Tom is the author of five books on American history, including The Year That Made America, which recounts the intense political battle that led to the Declaration of Independence. He has also written two books on the Battle of Gettysburg and one each on September 11 and the Star-Spangled Banner from Fort McHenry.

He has served on the board of trustees of Pittsburgh’s Heinz History Center, on the board of directors of the Friends of Flight 93 National Memorial, on the marketing committee of the Gettysburg Foundation, and as a tour guide at the Civil War room at Carnegie Library. Tom currently serves as co-host of the “Antietam and Beyond” podcast and is a facilitator of the Adams County Historical Society’s battlefield leadership program in Gettysburg. He has a journalism degree from Point Park University in Pittsburgh.

Tom and his wife, Colleen, split their time between Pittsburgh and Gettysburg.

Join us on April 14, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. as we welcome Tom McMillan to discuss his book The Year That Made America. This book tells the "story behind the story" of the Declaration of Independence. McMillan is the first historian in years to probe the details of how our founding document came about – focusing on the first eight months of 1776, when America’s future hinged on an intense political struggle in the Continental Congress. With the 250th anniversary upon us, a reviewer called it "compelling and meticulously-researched story-telling."

Dr. Charles Cashdollar

Charles Cashdollar is the Distinguished University Professor of History Emeritus at IUP and the author of The IUP Story: From Normal School to University (2021). The IUP history was a joint project with his wife, Donna Evans Cashdollar, who is the book’s graphic designer.

He grew up in the countryside near Mars, Pennsylvania, and, after graduating from Mars High School, he came to Indiana University of Pennsylvania (then Indiana State College) where he received a B.S. in Social Studies Education in 1965. From 1965 to 1968, he held a University Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania where he completed an M.A. (1966) and Ph.D. (1969) in history and religious studies. 

He spent one semester as an instructor in history at Penn before returning to Indiana to join the history faculty in the fall of 1969. At IUP, his teaching focused on the history of American Thought and Culture, American Religion, and late-nineteenth century Britain and America until his retirement in 2005. 

From 1987 to 1993, he was IUP’s first Director of Liberal Studies with responsibility for implementing and administering a new university-wide undergraduate general education curriculum, including a writing-across-the-curriculum program and a campus-wide senior interdisciplinary course. As Director, he also chaired the initial planning committee that led to the university’s Robert E. Cook Honors College; after the College’s opening, he was a regular member of its core faculty.  He was President of the Pennsylvania Historical Association, 2007-2008.

In addition to his history of IUP, he is the author of The Transformation of Theology, 1830-1890: Positivism and Protestant Thought in Britain and America (Princeton University Press, 1989); A Spiritual Home: Life in British and American Reformed Congregations, 1830-1915 (Penn State University Press, 2000); Let All Give Thanks: A Bicentennial History of Calvary Presbyterian Church, Indiana, Pennsylvania, 1807-2007 (2008), co-author of This Far by Faith: Tradition and Change in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania (Penn State University Press, 2012) as well as the author of articles in the Journal of the History of Ideas, Harvard Theological Review, Church History, Journal of Presbyterian History, Pennsylvania History, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, and other journals. 

Join us on April 28, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. as we welcome Dr. Charles Cashdollar to speak about his book The IUP Story.