Associate vice provost for diversity and inclusion announces retirement

Carolyn E. Johnson

Carolyn E. Johnson, associate vice provost for diversity and inclusion, has announced that she will retire from Purdue on June 30. Throughout her career, Johnson has been a steadfast and engaged advocate on a wide range of diversity issues and has often lent her expertise and guidance to equity and inclusion projects across the University and around the globe. In retirement, she will continue to stay engaged with Purdue as associate vice provost for diversity and inclusion emerita. A celebration of Johnson’s 35-year career with Purdue will occur at a later date.

Formerly a public school teacher and administrator, Johnson began her Purdue career in 1985 as a senior research associate in the African American Studies and Research Center (AASRC) in the College of Liberal Arts. She  regularly taught a course titled “Black Women Rising,” coordinated an annual symposium on African American Culture and Philosophy in addition to numerous other programs and events, and served as chief editor of the academic newsletter “Nommo: Power of the Word” and interim director of AASRC several times.

“Throughout her career, Carolyn has sought out and developed opportunities for meaningful dialogue, with an emphasis on religion, race and conflict,” says John Gates, vice provost for diversity and inclusion. “Her impressive international experience has informed her work at Purdue, and we are the better for it.”

Whether serving as an election monitor in Liberia, working with minoritized Burakumin communities in Japan or studying the experiences of Black people in post-Communist Europe, Johnson’s expertise in planning and guiding discussions has enabled countless people to push past their own anxieties toward meaningful dialogue. Having worked in over 100 countries around the globe, Johnson is guided by a deep appreciation for the complexities of the human experience and a conviction that it is by voicing the things that make us uncomfortable that we truly learn about ourselves and each other.

In 2006, Johnson was named director of Purdue’s Diversity Resource Office, where she was instrumental in building out the DiversiKey Certificate Program. She also led the Diversity in the Classroom and Diversity in the Professoriate initiatives, launched three campus conferences on diversity (Connections, Intersections, and Transformations), developed a Visiting Global Scholars program, and initiated Diversity at Work, a multi-part professional development series for Purdue staff.

Through her leadership of the campus Diversity Roundtable and Diversity Summit, as well as related events, she created opportunities for members of various diversity committees across campus to link and align their efforts and to participate in professional development that strengthened the work in their colleges and units. From 2008 to 2009, Johnson served as interim chief diversity officer and, from 2017 to 2019, as special advisor to the provost.

“I have called on Carolyn many, many times for her valuable input and counsel,” says Jay Akridge, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and diversity. “I respect her wisdom and appreciate her dedication to helping us work toward a better, more inclusive campus community.” 

Johnson was named associate vice provost for diversity and inclusion in 2019. As she worked closely with Akridge and Gates, her efforts have been focused on supporting multicultural and minority program directors, identifying opportunities for institutional improvement in the recruitment and success of students, staff and faculty, as well as acting as a liaison to the University Senate's Equity and Diversity Committee.

In the local community and beyond, Johnson has been an engaged advocate for positive change through her service as executive director of the Hanna Community Center, a member of the President's Council of DePauw University and as a board member for numerous organizations including Bennett College, the Urban League, the American Red Cross, the NAACP, Girl Scouts of America, United Way, YWCA and the World Council of Churches' Institute Oecuménique de Bossey (at the University of Geneva, Switzerland). An active member of the United Methodist Church, she previously served as president of United Methodist Women.

Johnson earned a bachelor's degree and master's degree in elementary education from Indiana University in 1968 and 1970, respectively. She received her doctorate in educational administration from Purdue in 1985.