Karen A. Johnson Assistant Professor 383 MBH, 587-7818 Karen.Johnson@utah.edu

Leading Scholar on Anna Julia Cooper

Academic Preparation:

Doctor of Philosophy in Education - University of California, Los Angeles
Major: Educational Administration

Master of Arts - Atlanta University
Major: Educational Psychology

Bachelor of Science - City College of New York
Major: Special Education, Minor: Speech Pathology

Research Interests:

* Historical and Contemporary Issues in African American Education
* Urban Education and Multicultural Education
* Black Feminist and Womanist Theories
* Narrative Inquiry and Portraitures
* Autobiography and Biography

Courses Taught and/or developed in Education:

ECS 7612 Historical and Contemporary Issues in Black Education (developed)
ECS 6631 Minorities and Urban Schools(developed)
ECS 6632 Research in Multicultural Education
ECS 7627 Race, Culture, and Represention (developed)
ECS 6950 Intersection of Race, Gender, & Class in Education (developed special topics Fall 2001)
ECS 7950 Black Womanist Epistemology (developed special topics Fall 2003)

Courses Taught in Ethnic Studies:

*ETNC 2550 African American Experience
*ETNC 4020 Black Feminist Thought

Karen A. Johnson is the author of "Uplifting the Woman and the Race: The Educational Philosophies and Social Activism of Anna Julia Cooper and Nannie Helen Burroughs." NY: Garland Publishing, A division of Routledge (2000). Dr. Johnson's area of specialty are many, but in particular it is late nineteenth and early twentieth African American women educators, African American women's intellectual traditions, black feminist and womanist theories and urban education. Johnson is the leading scholar on Anna Julia Cooper. Cooper was an educator, author, community activist, and feminist of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Dr. Johnson also has enormous knowledge and experience in urban education and multicultural education. She worked as an urban school educator for close to 15 years in New York City, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. She taught culturally and linguistically diverse students from the N-12th grade levels. Prior to teaching at the University of Utah, Johnson worked at Southern University at New Orleans. While there, she collaboratively develop the M.A.T. in Urban Schools Program---a program that had a mission of preparing in-serve teachers to work as social justice advocates in the urban schools in New Orleans.

During the 92nd annual Association for the Study of the African American Life and History Conference in Birmingham, Alabama, in October 2008, the United States Postal Service unveiled a new stamp in the Black Heritage Series. The stamp featured the late 19th and early 20th century educator, activist, feminist, and author---Anna Julia Cooper. Dr. Karen A. Johnson, a leading scholar on Cooper, gave a brief address on the life and works of Anna Julia Cooper, at the unveiling of the stamp. The stamp will be available in June 2009.