Keith Johnson, the vice president of equity and inclusion at ETSU, was chosen to be a part of the Complete Tennessee Leadership Institute’s new cohort.
CTLI is a cohort designed to help more students in Tennessee complete a postsecondary education.
“My role would be to help us really look at some of the challenges we are facing in this particular state and try to overcome some of those challenges so we can meet the demands of what we are anticipating in terms of employment needs,” said Johnson.
Johnson is the chair for the department of engineering, engineering technology and surveying. He is also the first vice president for equity and inclusion at ETSU. His 27 years of experience at ETSU has given him a unique outlook on higher education.
CTLI is faced with the challenges of students completeing their education.
“We’re finding the state of Tennessee…we are looking by a certain year having 55% of our folks getting college degrees, well we are not there yet,” said Johnson. “In fact, we are not even up to fifty yet. So that’s a big issue.”
Part of CTLI’s mission is to make sure students are prepared for the job market by having necessary degrees and also making sure the growing job market has enough qualified potential employees.
“If we don’t get students in and out of college, honestly they are not going to be prepared for the job market,” said Johnson. “If we are talking about bringing more jobs back to America, then we need to make sure we have employees here in America doing the jobs.”
With the issues of loans and family situations, many students struggle to continue a post-secondary education. Those who do invest in a higher education risk working a lifetime to pay off college debt.
“If I were confronted with a lot of this debt, it would be very difficult for me to focus on education,” Johnson said. “How do we fix the debt part? How do we fix the child-care part? How do we fix the things you encounter along the way? I think if we can begin to address that then graduating becomes more the biproduct.”
Johnson believes the diversity of CTLI will make cohort’s mission more innovative.
“I think bringing in this diverse population of people from different factettes of the state, from industry, from education, from non-profits, to entrepreneurs, you know just bringing a lot of different people together,” Johnson said. “I think that’s where the innovation will begin.”
