Faculty president brings kindness to new role

Cheryl Johnson. Photo by Kyle Venooker.

You’re probably familiar with the phrase “kind eyes.” Cheryl Johnson, newly elected full-time faculty association president for Mt. Hood, has a “kind presence.”

Meeting her was slightly jarring, as she wasn’t the stern and to-the-point personality I had composited from our brief email conversation to set up an interview. The English instructor, a Portland native with an affinity for felines, was not who I expected, in many regards. Polite and inviting, by the time we started the interview she had inquired about my major, how I was enjoying MHCC, and whether or not I had an adviser.

Make no mistake, Johnson is someone who cares, and carries herself with a pride in her work and the school with which she works. Which is why, effective this term, she has taken over as faculty president, succeeding mathematics instructor Tambi Boyle.

“I’ve been involved in our union leadership for the past three years… so it just seemed like a good time to step up, as our current president (Boyle) is interested in moving on,” Johnson said.

“I personally think that Tambi and I will work pretty closely together,” she said. “The way our union is structured is that we have a position for the past president to stay on and advise – just to make sure there’s continuity.”

Johnson added that Boyle has “done a really fantastic job making sure that faculty voice is represented. I really respect the work she’s done and look forward to working with her.”

She notes that MHCC, on an administrative level, has undergone a lot of changes, so there’s a lot to keep up with. “For faculty, we have a lot of initiatives that come at us, all the time,” she explained. Her intent is to see those initiatives through, she said.

The trick in doing that is the large number of faculty members in all the MHCC departments that are represented by Johnson. She said, “I’m planning to go around the college and meet faculty from different areas. I know a lot of the transfer faculty, but I feel like (the) CTE programs, I don’t know that well.

“After that, I’ll have a better idea about things that should be accomplished or things that could be done,” she said.

Possibly the most impressive feature of Johnson upon an initial encounter isn’t her ambition or will, but her sense of priority.

“I’ve only been a teacher. My whole career has been focused on education,” she said. “So if we talk about identities? I’m a teacher first. I don’t plan on losing that.”

Johnson has been a highly regarded English teacher for several years at MHCC. She’s a bookworm, as could be expected. “I love reading, actually… that might not be a huge surprise. I love young adult fiction. I think it gets to the point faster, but still deals with big themes.”

Her favorite author, however, is not a young adult fiction writer, but Milan Kundera.

“One book of his that I find I come back to quite a bit is ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being,’ ” she said. “He’s really changed some of my ideas about what fiction had to be.”

Advocate Staff