Truth: A television ad changed Jennifer Johnson’s life.
“When I was in fifth-grade, I saw a commercial for Illinois Bell, and it had Alexander Graham Bell on it. He had a thing that made someone with a hearing impairment able to hear,” Johnson says.
“It was like the Folger’s commercials that make you cry. I was like, ‘That’s what I want to do. I want to do that.’ I decided in fifth-grade that I wanted to be a deaf educator,” she adds.
“And when I got to high school, I thought, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t plan your career path at the age of 10.’ I looked around at other things – linguistics is kind of my thing – and I thought about being a speech-language pathologist, but I found out I would have to get my master’s degree before I could even start. So I stuck with deaf education.”
Johnson, senior director of the college’s Office for Student Success, never looked back – and, when she retires at the end of the month, will close the book on a career of more than three decades in education and 30 years at NIU.
She began as a teacher for a few different special education cooperatives, first in Joliet and later in Channahon, Streator and the Regional Educational Service Association.
Her career in the classroom also took her to a few schools in the Southwest Metropolitan Association for Special Education and, finally, to Caroline Sibley Elementary School in Calumet City.
By that point, she was ready to start a family with her husband, Randy.
“Brandon was due in July, so I finished out that school year, put in for maternity leave and thought, ‘You know what? I’m a teacher. Babies take two naps a day. It’ll be fine. I can go back.’ So I took off until December as my initial maternity leave,” Johnson says.
“Then, when that time came, I thought, ‘I just can’t quite leave my baby,’ and so I took the second semester off, and that was the maximum that the district allowed at the time,” she adds. “I resigned at the end of the school year when I wasn’t ready to come back full time.”
Enter NIU.
Johnson heard from her former supervisor in that district that the university needed a clinical field supervisor for candidates in the deaf education program. Johnson had experience in observing teachers in remediation and providing feedback, and her former supervisor thought she was perfect for the job.
“She said, ‘You’d be great at this – but it’s very part time,’ ” Johnson says. “I looked into it and, at that time, I said I could take four students, which meant I worked two days a month. They welcomed me with open arms.”
“Open arms” defines her tenure in DeKalb since 1992.
When the deaf education program closed, Johnson’s licensure in special education, early childhood education, elementary education and secondary education allowed her to stay at NIU by moving into supervision of elementary education candidates.
She eventually worked with the M.S.Ed. in Elementary Education program during its transition to the Master of Arts in Teaching and later served as a placement coordinator in the Department of Special and Early Education.
Her role grew when she became the college’s director of Teacher Preparation and Development, which eventually vaulted her into her current “dream job.”
Responsibilities have included:
- Providing leadership and direction to the three licensing departments.
- Serving as a liaison between the college and the K-12 system.
- Supervising and coordinating school-university partnerships.
- Managing clinical observations and student-teaching placements.
- Implementing data collection and reporting processes to support the assessment of teacher-candidates during their clinical field experiences.
Johnson also is a clinical practice fellow, involved in the Illinois State Board of Education’s Continuous Improvement Community of Practice, part of the Illinois Ed Prep Impact Network and a member of the National Association of Professional Development Schools and the Association of Teacher Education.
And she’s loved it all.
“Everyone I’ve ever worked for has always been super supportive; if I was pregnant or had to shuffle my loads, I could. I’ve never not felt supported,” says Johnson, who also earned her master’s degree at NIU during her Huskie tenure.
“I’ve just been happy to serve in whatever capacity I could to be of service to the college, and that’s how I went from spot to spot – wherever there was a need,” she adds. “I’ve been super blessed to have people with confidence and trust in me to allow me to be in spaces where I could make a difference, and I really believe that from my heart.”
Moving around comes naturally.
The oldest daughter of Regis Snyder was born while he was still in the U.S. Army, and Johnson, who was born in Michigan, lived in five different states and in Japan by the time her father was discharged.
Snyder settled his family in Texas while he attended the University of Texas at El Paso, earning his bachelor’s degree in accountancy on the same day Johnson graduated from kindergarten: “We have pictures of ourselves in our little caps and gown together,” she says.
Her father then began a career in banking; her mother, Helen, was a teacher.
When she was ready for fourth-grade – or maybe fifth-grade, when that Illinois Bell commercial caught her eye – the family relocated to Batavia.
“My husband and I both went to Batavia High School,” she says, “and now we live in Geneva, so we didn’t move far from where our roots are.”
And, for someone who logged so many homes early in life, her only work outside of the Land of Lincoln took place during her final semester at Illinois State University.
Johnson’s student-teaching took place at the residential Indiana School for the Deaf in Indianapolis, where she lived in the residence hall with her students and shared meals with them.
“I thought I was proficient in sign language until I went there. That’s where I really learned it,” she says. “I loved it, and the biggest lesson I went away with was that if I was ever to have a deaf child, I would move to a space where they would have the opportunity to go to a school in a setting where the entire community speaks their language.”
Concepts of community are important to her.
“I have been so fortunate in this space to have met literally thousands of students, to hear their stories and to partner with them in becoming successful,” she says.
“To see them go from children when they come to us to adults on their career paths. To have them love NIU like I love NIU. To have them say, ‘I’m so excited I can ring the bell at commencement,’ because that’s one of my favorite things,” she adds. “They are just so happy, and to be able to see that has just been amazing. They’re just Huskie-proud, and that makes me proud.”
Leading the Office for Student Success, which also serves kinesiology and sport management majors, has given Johnson more connections and a broader reach. She’s also gained insight into what students need beyond the curricular and programmatic to help them thrive.
Yet most of her memories are of the future educators who’ve crossed her path.
“I’ve always been proud of our teachers, and the reason is because of the feedback I get from the field. People tell me that they want to hire our students,” she says.
“I also am proud because we have partnered so well with our districts where we place our candidates,” she adds. “We listen to them to meet changing needs – the big cultural shifts that have happened in the philosophy of instruction over the last 30 years. You have to be on the forefront, and at NIU, we have listened and responded and prepared teachers to be successful in those spaces. It isn’t me – it’s our College of Education – but I’m proud to have been a part of that, even if it’s just a tiny part.”
Retirement will provide more time for family – she and Randy are parents to Brandon, Brittany (mother to their grandchild, Arthur) and Andrew – and running.
“Running is my therapy,” says Johnson, who covers as many as 25 miles a week while training for races.
“I started running right after my mom died. She died June 10, 2013, and that was when I started,” she adds. “Running really has given me to that outlet to think, process and meditate – I do all of those things while I run.”
Johnson placed a chart on her wall at home with daily mileage requirements for going from the couch to being able to complete a half-marathon.
Following its prompts, she would run “two miles day, three miles this day, seven on the weekend, and then, next Monday, you get to rest. If you do what it tells you to do, you can do it.”
Eventually, she was logging results she hadn’t thought possible.
“The first time I ran double-digits, I texted my son, who is a runner, and I was like, ‘I just ran 10 miles all in a row! I can’t believe it!’ And he was like, ‘I know!’ ”
Mileage by car and plane rather than feet will allow Johnson to gather with her children and their families.
Brittany, the middle child and an advertising designer in Chicago, is the closest. Brandon, the oldest, is a math teacher at St. Thomas More High School in Milwaukee. Andrew, the youngest, uses his degree in computer science to work as a front-end engineer in Santa Clara, Calif.
“I have always seen my family as my priority. I’ve always spent as much time as I can with them, and now I’ll just have more minutes to do that,” Johnson says. “I’ll also be traveling for sure, way more than I have in the past, and I look forward to seeing some places that I wanted to see and haven’t.”
And, she says, at some point she will determine how to remain somewhat involved in education.
“I will continue to be engaged in what I’ve always been passionate about., and I’m not sure yet what that will look like,” she says. “It’s not something that I’m leaving behind.”
She is certain, however, that she will fondly remember the NIU College of Education.
“I love NIU. I am a Huskie. I’m an alumna. But it’s the College of Ed that I will miss the most. The people. The friendships that I’ve made. I’ve made some amazing, real friendships – not just work friends. I will miss the day-to-day interactions with those really great friends and many of the friends who’ve retired before me,” she says.
“I’ve never not felt valued here, and I know that is something that not everyone has at their place of employment,” she adds. “When I say I’m blessed, I’m not kidding. I have been so very blessed. I’m so lucky.”
