Pat and Joe Johnson will receive the Bruce McCarty Community Impact Award on Thursday at the annual meeting of the East Tennessee Community Design Center. Writer Tracy Haun Owens caught up with Dr. Joe at his office at UT for an interview prior to the event.
When he retired as University of Tennessee president in 1999, Joe Johnson Ph.D. had a handy bit of math to sum up his service to the university, which he joined in November 1963:
“I came for three years and stayed for 36.”
That turned out not to be the end of the story.
This fall marks 55 years of Johnson’s presence at the university. In 2003, he came back for a year as interim president following the resignation of John Shumaker. Since 2004, he has served the university as president emeritus. From his office in the Andy Holt Tower, with the help of longtime assistant Brenda Wallace, he engages in alumni relations, fundraising, planning, committee service and whatever the president needs him to do.
He is also a one-man institutional history: “If someone wants to know why UT did something in 1965 or 1966, they ask me.”
A native of Alabama, Johnson came here in 1956 for a master’s degree in public administration following graduation from Birmingham Southern. He paused his studies for two years to serve as a sergeant in the United States Army before getting his degree in 1960 and heading for Nashville. There he worked as an executive assistant for Gov. Buford Ellington. His friend and mentor Ed Boling approached him about coming to work as an executive assistant to President Andy Holt in 1963, which he did.
Later he served two separate stints as vice president for development. During the first, Holt “insisted” that Johnson earn a doctorate.
“That’s when I fell in love with higher education,” Johnson says.
Just when Johnson was settled into his role at UTK, Holt appointed him chancellor of the Center for Health Sciences in Memphis. For Johnson, whose background was in history and political science, it kindled a deep appreciation and understanding of the contributions that come from science and medicine.
It was also a typically bold move on Holt’s part, Johnson says. “He was always challenging you.
“Andy Holt was a master at relating to people. He showed up early, worked the tables and stayed until the last person left.”
About Ed Boling, under whom he served as executive vice president until Boling’s retirement in 1988, he says, “He was the most ethical, honest person I’ve ever known.”
“It was a true pleasure” to work for both.
He also has high praise for retiring president Joe DiPietro:
“He has done an absolutely stellar job.”
This past summer DiPietro appointed Johnson to head a committee to advise the university on what to do with the Eugenia Williams’ home and estate. The home, built in 1940 and designed by renowned architect John Staub, is 10,800 square feet on 24 acres of riverfront land near Cherokee Country Club in Bearden. The home has been the subject of controversy, regularly named to the preservation group Knox Heritage’s list of fragile properties.
The estate was bequeathed to the university when Williams died in 1998, during Johnson’s time as president, although “Miss Eugenia,” as Johnson refers to her, had actually discussed her plans originally with Johnson’s predecessor, Ed Boling. The intention when she gave the estate was that the home would be used as the residence for the UT president. At the time, Johnson announced that UT hoped to raise private funds to renovate the home for his successor. Instead, the university did away with the official residence for its president. The estate cannot be sold, per the terms of the bequest, but there is no requirement to keep the house intact.
The affable Johnson is predictably circumspect about any conclusions toward which the committee is leaning, saying only that his group hopes to have a recommendation in a few months.
Johnson has a good relationship with incoming interim president Randy Boyd, having approached the businessman many times over the years with development and fundraising concerns, and having served with him in various not-for-profit roles, including with the Boy Scouts of America. Johnson and Boyd’s wife, Jenny, have served on the board of the Museum of Appalachia together.
“If he says he doesn’t need me, I’ll wander off and find something else to do,” he says with a smile.
Of his own legacy, Johnson is proudest of the university’s relationship with Oak Ridge National Laboratories. The University of Tennessee manages ORNL through UT-Battelle. Johnson says that in 1997 he was convinced that the university should find a partner and compete for this role. It was announced a month after his retirement in 1999.
“This puts us in a different category,” Johnson says. “It’s absolutely phenomenal for our research center.”
From his earliest time at UT, Johnson says the university has made “great steps forward.” Retention and graduation rates are up, and admission standards have increased.
“We’ve kept talented students in Tennessee,” he says. “There are a whole host of ways in which we’ve had an economic and educational impact on Tennessee.”
Since he returned to Knoxville from Memphis in 1974, Johnson has lived in the same house in Riverbend with his wife, Pat, a Kentucky native whom he met at UT and married 59 years ago in June. They have a son, Kent, of Knoxville, a daughter, Kelly, of Nashville, and two grandsons, Tucker and Luke. Johnson’s office is filled with family photos and professional mementoes, but no computer.
Its absence is deliberate, he says.
“E-mailing your staff” – instead of talking issues over face-to-face – “is sending messages – it’s not communicating.”
And being connected 24 hours a day, seven days a week, prevents the kind of long-range vision and planning that a president has to have to lead.
“We become so attached that we don’t take time to disconnect and think about the important issues,” Johnson says. “What’s most important? What are your priorities?”
Pat and Joe Johnson will be honored at this week’s awards banquet for the East Tennessee Community Design Center. (Photos from ETCDC newsletter)
The Beck Cultural Exchange Center will receive the Annette Anderson Director’s Award for the Delaney House Restoration Project. The awards banquet, presented by Regal, will be 5:30-8:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25, at The Foundry.