Tolson’s teaching reflects her heightened sensitivity to diversity on campus. Tolson specializes in Children’s Literature, particularly African, African-American and multi-cultural children’s literature. Her work also engages Women’s Studies, storytelling, and the literary and oral culture of the African diaspora. As a Fulbright Fellow in 2002-03, Tolson taught primary reading education at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, West Africa.

Her commitment to diversity also is evident in her service to the College and University. She delivered the Redbird Diversity Program lecture, “Journey to Justice: Celebrating 50 Years, Brown vs. Board of Education,” during which she told the historical and legal stories of the case, and cautioned listeners that separate is never equal and that U.S. culture is still far from the equality promised by the myth of Brown vs. Board. She served on the Diversity Task Force in 2003-04 and she currently serves on the Faculty Retention Implementation Committee. Since 1999, she has been the faculty advisor and fiscal agent for the Black Writer’s Forum, assisting in students’ development by exposing them to black writers at national conferences. She also has invited several award-winning authors and poets to campus. She was a key source in the development of the African-American studies program. A volunteer herself in adult literacy programs, Tolson developed service-learning projects for her students to assist literacy enrichment at Bent Elementary School in Bloomington.