Sitting back relaxed with his hands clasped, he compares the office to a hotel room because he is a guest in someone else’s space.

Wendell Johnson is under one year full-time temporary employment as a sociology professor, and with his past experiences he makes a knowledgeable addition to the Shippensburg University faculty.

Johnson studied two years at Delaware County Community College, one year at Temple University, graduated from Cheyney University and received his master’s degree and doctorate from Northwestern University.

Currently, Johnson is teaching Introduction to Sociology but will soon be adding Social Problems to his work for the spring semester.
In the past, Johnson was among one of the first social scientists hired to study HIV/AIDS. He was a researcher at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) School of Public Health for 10 years directing community outreach intervention and research. The study took place from the 1980s to 2004.

“The federal government began to fund social-behavioral research on injecting drug users in an effort to develop effective health interventions to reduce the amount of HIV infections in this population, and to prevent wider spread of the disease into heterosexual populations,” Johnson said.

It brought about changes such as schools and other facilities distributing condoms, which did not occur much before the study took place.

“We were able to get this issue established as a major public health issue. Our work led up to these important changes,” Johnson said.

Recently, Johnson has co-authored “A Randomized Trial Comparing Standard Outcomes between Two Treatment Models for Substance Users with Tuberculosis,” which is published in the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases.

When not involved with sociology, Johnson enjoys reading Cold War, detective or mystery novels.

Though originally from Houston, Texas, Johnson had to take time away from his wife and son who reside in Atlanta, Georgia.

His wife is an Atlanta Public Schools Technology teacher, and his son is a computer science sophomore at Georgia Tech.

Johnson said that he goes home at every break and talks to his wife daily, but really misses his family and three dogs. He is looking forward to going home for Thanksgiving. Despite having to be away from his family, Johnson enjoys Shippensburg.

“Shippensburg is great. There is great student culture and the students are engaged,” Johnson said, “It’s one of the best teaching experiences I have had.”

Johnson does not have definite plans on where he will be headed after his year at Shippensburg.

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