Alex Johnson’s vision of community college education is rooted in his Concord, North Carolina, childhood. His grandmother, who cared for him while his parents worked, ingrained in him the importance of schooling and enrolled him in church activities. That church community provided a bedrock sense of continuity and “great lessons of hope and commitment” for a young Black boy growing up in a segregated southern town. It also planted the seeds of what would become a commitment to promoting access to and equality in education, developing students’ leadership skills and promoting community outreach initiatives “so there is the intersection of civic engagement with educational delivery.”
“That experience has resonated with me throughout my career,” he says.
The vision has reaped multiple advances since the 71-year-old assumed the presidency of Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) in 2013. Graduation rates have risen to meet or exceed national averages. Financial giving to support student scholarships and personal needs is up from approximately $39 million to more than $100 million. Medical Mutual of Ohio Chairman, President and CEO Rick Chiricosta, who just completed 12 years on the Tri-C Foundation’s board of directors, remembers feeling sorry for the unassuming man who would succeed the “iconic” Jerry Sue Thornton.
“We’ve had plenty of other organizations where a longtime leader has left, and the new one couldn't get accepted,” he observes. “I think the fact that he’s not only become so accepted, but also so well loved just says everything about him.”
Johnson’s first job after graduating from Winston-Salem State University with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education in 1971 was teaching at a publicly funded early childhood center in New York City. At the same time, he worked on a master’s degree in early childhood education from Lehman College, spurred by the lack of programs for the children with developmental delays whom he encountered. A professor there moved him to alter his career path by introducing tools such as screening measures.
“I wanted to be a college professor, too, and make a greater impact that would ultimately enrich the lives of young people,” he says.
Johnson earned a doctorate in early childhood and special education from Pennsylvania State University in 1978 and spent three years as an assistant professor at Bowling Green State University before returning to Winston-Salem State as an associate professor. By 1993, he was the university’s vice president for academic affairs. That year, then-Kent State University president Carol Cartwright, a former Penn State faculty member who’d served as Johnson’s adviser, called to see if he was interested in the Tri-C Metro Campus post Thornton was looking to fill. The job would put him and wife Daphne close to her ailing mother in Youngstown.
Under Johnson’s direction, the campus worked to ensure Cleveland Metropolitan School District students were prepared for college coursework. It implemented a program that improved district math curricula by providing in-service training for its teachers and established the High-Tech Academy, a still-thriving program that puts students in college classes for half of the school day. Community engagement initiatives included building computer labs in district buildings and public housing developments to help bridge the digital divide and sending nursing students into the community to perform screenings and provide referrals to health care organizations for preschoolers.
In 2004, Johnson left Cleveland for New Orleans to head Delgado Community College. Four years later, he moved to Pittsburgh to become president of Community College of Allegheny County. In 2013, Tri-C called to ask if he’d like to interview for the retiring Thornton’s job. Cleveland Private Trust Co. president and CEO Andrew Randall, then on the college board of trustees he now chairs, recalls that Johnson not only was familiar with the school, having been president of the Tri-C Metro Campus, but also had the self-confidence and interpersonal skills needed to manage four campuses and build on the connections Thornton had established.
“No leader, whether it’s civic, college, business, whatever, can be successful in Cleveland if they don’t have an interpersonal connectivity,” Randall declares.
Among Johnson’s first projects was increasing the percentage of students who graduated in a timely manner. Today, he says the college is “well above” the national average of 25% of students earning a certificate in one-and-a-half years.
The school also established an “access agenda” to increase enrollment and retention that included expanded community outreach and putting a food pantry on every campus to assist students facing food insecurity. Money provided by voter passage of a $225 million construction bond in 2017 was used, among other things, to purchase and renovate a property that became the Transportation Innovation Center in Euclid and augment facilities for “centers of excellence” in the creative arts, hospitality management, nursing, information technology, manufacturing and public safety, the last three of which had been established under Johnson’s leadership. The developments reflect what Chiricosta describes as Johnson’s efforts to reach out to business leaders and identify workforce needs.
“There are leaders who come in, and they think they know everything,” he says. “That’s not Alex.”
Johnson is facing the biggest challenge of his tenure in guiding Tri-C through the COVID-19 pandemic. Enrollment had increased prior to the pandemic, but has dropped to 20,000 since the pandemic, despite the fact that past efforts to improve student access to information technology made it easier to transition to online learning.
“I don’t think I would be the most suitable president for Tri-C if I didn’t think about what we could do,” he says.
