Norman J. Johnson
Professor of Organizational Sciences
Director of School Development-School of Business and Industry (SBI)
Florida A&M University
Norman J. Johnson is currently professor of Organizational Sciences and Director of Student Development at the School of Business and Industry (SBI), Florida A&M University (FAMU). He is chair of the Search Committee charged with identifying a set of leadership talent to lead SBI over the next decade and Chair of the Organizational Sciences’ Change Management Committee that provides organizational oversight for the Enterprise Resource Planning Project (ERP). ERP is a FAMU-wide strategic initiative that will revolutionize the way the business of education is done at FAMU by moving timely, accurate information to the desktop. Prior to FAMU, he was a member of the general faculty while serving as Senior Executive in the Office of the President at the Georgia Institute of Technology (1988-1998) where he, among other responsibilities, redesigned, reinvented, and reengineered Tech’s nationally recognized and acclaimed minority student effort which mirrored his path-breaking work on this issue at Carnegie Mellon where he served as tenured full professor, Director and Associate Dean (1969-1987).
He earned his Master’s and Ph.D. from Ohio State University, where he specialized in education management and organizational science. He has done further study at the Harvard Law and Business Schools. He has held faculty appointments at the University of Illinois, University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, Florida A&M University, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. He earned full professorship and tenure and Carnegie Mellon University in 1971.
Prior to his Georgia Tech appointment, he served as Professor of Organizational Management and Associate Vice President for Academic Human Resource Development at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. He has been Human Resources Regional Manager—Eastern College Region—for the Honeywell Corporation in Minneapolis, MN. In the late 1960s he was a co-founder of the School of Urban and
- more -
Public Affairs (SUPA) at Carnegie Mellon and served as the first Director (1969-1981) of its highly touted Masters program in management and public policy. The majority student populations in this program are minority (African and Hispanic–Americans and women) and that is the case even today. At Carnegie Mellon University he created the Carnegie Mellon Action Program (C-MAP) which still stands 30 years later and is the precursor program in the successful national minority engineering movement. For this work he was recognized by The National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) as one of its pioneers. He headed SUPA’s Southern African project based in South Africa and Zimbabwe. He was an officer in the United States Army and a poverty warrior in the early ‘60s in Pittsburgh.
He is a member of the National Academy of Public Administration, one of three such national academies. He served as an elected member of the Atlanta Board of Education (1993-2001) and is a former president of that board. He is a life member of the NAACP, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, and the 100 Black Men of Atlanta. He is past president of the National Association of Schools and Public Affairs and Administration, and past chair of the Board of Trustees at the Mt. Ararat Baptist Church in Pittsburgh where he redesigned the ministerial personnel system for the church.
He was principal organizer and chaired the Public Program and Celebration for Nelson Mandela in Atlanta at Georgia Tech. He is one of the chief architects of Centennial Place: the successful and premier HOPE VI project in America. This 60-acre mixed income development of the former Torchwood/Clark Howell Homes, the oldest public housing project in America, is the model today for income urban redevelopment. While organizational design was a major contribution, the location and protection of a premier, high-performing elementary school has proven to be legendary and fundamental to the development’s short and long-term success. His work here is documented in an Abt Associates’ publication for The Office of Public Housing Investments. Further work on impacts is being done by Professor Danny Boston at Georgia Tech.
Johnson’s organizational science specialty is organizational transition and reinvention. He is published; he has attracted money to support his work throughout his career and he is an outstanding teacher and a skilled organizational strategist.