Cheryl Johnson sums up a laundry list of her responsibilities in the School of Public Health succinctly: “My job is to keep the train on the track.”
As director of Student and Academic Services in the School of Public Health, Johnson is tasked with undergraduate and graduate student admissions and retention, plus strategic planning, finance, policy, internships, oversight, domestic project administration and more.
The Office of Student and Academic Services is a train with many cars moving through the “intersection of everything,” Johnson said, and it requires the group to work as a team to make faculty and students successful.
During the past 17 years, her colleagues have taken note of her work ethic, integrity and positive attitude and consider her both an outstanding leader and a team player. For these reasons and more, Johnson is UAB’s Employee of the Month.
Agile and accomplished
For most of Johnson’s tenure, Public Health was the domain of graduate students, but that changed two years ago when the new undergraduate program was launched. It added more work for her team, but she was surprised to see it brought something new — enthusiasm.
“With graduate students we can be more flexible, but undergraduates bring more excitement to the school,” she said. Undergrads add to the challenge to “make sure we are following policy but still helping the people who need it,” yet she considers providing that a part of good customer service.
Those who know and work with Johnson say she approaches every challenge with creativity and follows it through to completion. As former associate dean Melissa Galvin put it: “She is a woman who sets her mind to the task at hand and completes it with little fanfare or drama.”
Accessible and admired
Professor Pauline Jolly, director of UAB’s Minority Health International Research Training Program, said Johnson’s leadership is matched by her performance as a team player.
| “Everyday, Cheryl does her best to help faculty provide a quality education to students and then encourages those students to go out into the world to make a difference.” |
“Cheryl truly exemplifies what is best about UAB in the way that she interacts with students, faculty, other staff members, and visitors and in the way that she does her very best to help keep [UAB] among the top of schools of public health nationally.
Richard Mailhot, director of the school’s Information Services, agrees: “I work with her most every day on a broad variety of issues, from classroom setup, long-distance learning, to special events. In every endeavor we have worked together on, Cheryl is a joy to work with — she is a team player, a leader when needed, and she can see the big picture when it comes to planning.”
“She has the respect of all who know her, and this respect motivates others to pull together and work as a team,” said Associate Professor John Waterbor, M.D.
A role model
Even with her day-to-day responsibilities Johnson always finds time to support important student organizations such as the Upsilon Chapter of the Delta Omega Public Health Honor Society, says Assistant Professor Lisa McCormick, DrPH, who directs the Office of Public Health Practice.
McCormick says that is the quality makes her a role model. “She could not be a better example for the people who work with her and to the students she serves. She works tirelessly and diligently in the background, mostly with little or no recognition for her efforts.
“Everyday, Cheryl does her best to help faculty provide a quality education to students and then encourages those students to go out into the world to make a difference.”
