It wasn’t until minute 19 of my hour-long conversation with Fred Johnson, the new dean of arts and sciences, that I asked my first interview question. The first five of those 19 minutes were composed of small talk, which is how I discovered that Johnson is a former English professor from Whitworth University in Washington state, where he served in numerous administrative positions, making the transition to dean a natural continuation of that previous work.
The last 14 of those first 19 minutes were spent doing the opposite of small talk. Johnson didn’t just want to know where I was from and what I was studying. He wanted to know my hobbies and the books I was reading. He gave me suggestions for new books and filled me with hope that my history degree could actually land me a job someday. From those conversations, I learned two main things: Fred Johnson really cares about me, and he really cares about the arts and sciences.
“It’s hard to be in a time and a place where – outside the university – people say things like, ‘well, don’t major in history; you won’t be able to get a job,’” Johnson said. “But it’s not true, right? If you’ve got a bachelor’s degree and an interesting resume, you can open a lot of doors. And if you get great mentors and get great advice about how to enter the job market without selling your soul, that bachelor’s degree isn’t a waste of time.”
With the world putting more and more of an emphasis on professional programs, the arts and sciences – but especially the arts – have begun to take a backseat. They are the majors that won’t get you a job. They are the majors that will be a waste of four years of tuition payments.
“We wanted a leader who doesn’t want those disciplines to shrivel up and die: a leader who understands the importance and significance of those disciplines rooted in Christ,” Jacob Shatzer, university provost and vice president for academic affairs, said. “But we also needed someone who can help students understand how these disciplines prepare them for a real future in the world and workplace. Johnson has a really dynamic ability to do that.”
Johnson’s dynamic ability to show the practicality and marketability of the arts and sciences stems from his firm belief that they are a vital part of the overarching mission of higher education: making an interesting person.
“How do you make a really interesting person?” Johnson asked. “How do you form a person who is alive to the world in the way that really educated people are alive to the world? You want someone who comes up to a problem and can take it apart, come to conclusions, provide some potential answers, draw other people in and think about those answers together.”
So, how do you teach people all of those skills? To Johnson, the answer is a liberal arts education. In his role as the dean of arts and sciences, Johnson hopes to assist in cultivating really interesting people by supporting faculty members to teach within their passions so that students will remember why they love learning and want to do more of it. Becoming an interesting person, to Johnson, means listening to others’ passions and appreciating a wide range of people and ideas. And, based on the cheek-to-cheek smile spread across his face and how he leaned forward while listening to me talk about my favorite historical time periods, Johnson doesn’t just want to cultivate interesting people. He wants to be one himself.
“[Johnson] clearly has a love for all the disciplines,” Shatzer said. “Obviously, he loves English, but he loves many other things, whether it’s the art department or the biology department. They’re different loves, but he loves them all, and that makes him a good leader. He knows how to recognize the limitations of his own knowledge about other people’s disciplines and to lead well in the midst of that.”
As the dean of arts and sciences at a liberal arts university, having love for a wide variety of subjects is crucial. However, as a professor with a Ph.D. in English, there is always a fear that his first love will be his greatest. But Johnson doesn’t see that as an issue. Instead, he sees his knowledge of English as a strength, helping him better understand other disciplines and the connections between them.
“Computer science people, for example, are creative, right? They hold code in the way that poets hold language, and they are super logical like biologists in the way that they put things together. Studying biology or poetry would then make that computer science person better at computer science,” Johnson said. “A part of the job is to encourage people within the different disciplines to speak – not just positively – but with clarity about what’s happening across the hall or across the street.”
Not being as knowledgeable about science is not a weakness; it is an opportunity to listen better. It is an opportunity for Johnson to become a more interesting person. It is an opportunity for him to build a bridge of understanding between the different subjects, highlighting their similarities and celebrating their differences.
“The vision that I’m trying to encourage, and that Dr. Johnson is in on, is to not think competitively – school against school – but to think better about how we should actually work together in order to accomplish our mission,” Shatzer said.
Johnson – with his half-stocked shelves and unpacked boxes bursting with student artwork, faculty publications and student magazines – wants to build departments up and show that all subjects are worth studying. Johnson – with his inability to stop grinning while talking about Union professors’ accomplishments – desires to help the arts and sciences thrive in a world that sees them as impractical. Johnson – with his own publications about the art of visual storytelling in comic books – seeks to spotlight professors’ passions and show how every field of study is interconnected. Johnson – with his army of miniature Buster statues lining his office – just wants to get to know and love the students and faculty of Union University.
“As I’m getting older, I’ve started to focus more on what I love, which is helping people,” Johnson said. “Helping people figure out their next steps. Helping people shape the teaching that they want to do. Helping shape an institution and a faculty to make it a place where the faculty can thrive so that they can help the students thrive and become more interesting people. And now I get to do that as my job.”
