The Rev. Jason D. Thompson, PhD, is pastor of Sacramento's St. Andrews AME Church, the oldest historically Black congregation on the West Coast and a church that has been actively involved in addressing social justice issues for Black Californians since 1850. He is an inaugural faculty member of the new Black Honors College at California State University, Sacramento, where he contributes to its mission of Black intellectual thought and activism through an arts focus. His experience at the Black Honors College, along with previous faculty appointments at NYU, Arizona State University, and Appalachian State University, has allowed him to engage in courses and research exploring socially engaged practices in the arts, music participation as civic engagement, and the ways culture influences and mediates the musical experience. He is also interested in how the arts can serve as tools for social change. He is a co-editor of the upcoming book If Colors Could Be Heard: Narratives About Racial Identity in Music Education (Intellect Books, 2025), which shines a light on the hidden stories and music of marginalized peoples. He has studied at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Emory University, and Northwestern University. 

University Public Worship gathers weekly for the religious, spiritual, ethical, and moral formation of the Stanford community. Rooted in the history and progressive Christian tradition of Stanford’s historic Memorial Church, we cultivate a community of compassion and belonging through ecumenical Christian worship and occasional multifaith celebrations.