Jonathan Livingston
Dept. of Psychology
Since 2005

Dr Livingston had been at NCCU since 2005. Since coming to NCCU, he has worked on a number of initiatives. In 2006, Dr. Livingston, with the assistance and guidance of Dr. Rodney Cunningham and Dr. Sherry Eaton, secured a 30,000 grant to create a program called Eagles Soaring Higher, which was designed to increase the number of African American students in Family Studies and Psychology. Undergraduate students had an opportunity to receive training in statistics, research methodology and courses to help improve their GRE scores. NCCU students from this program are currently in masters and doctoral programs at the University of Virginia, UNC Greensboro, NCCU, and Marquette University. Also, Dr Livingston, along with Dr. Dorothy Singleton, worked as the Co Director for the Institute for the Study of Children Youth and Families where each year they help organize the African American Male and Family Conference here at NCCU. With the assistance of faculty from Psychology, Education, and Business, they were able to secure funding from the State of North Carolina and Goodwill Foundation to provide health educational sessions to African American males and young families. As Director of Export Outreach, JLC-BBRI, Dr. Livingston has worked with faculty from Biology, Education, and Theater, to create health disparities plays to educate African Americans in the triangle community about diabetes, prostate cancer, breast cancer, Alzheimers, HIV/AIDS, and substance abuse. Dr. Livingston also received a funding for the plays from NIH for over $950,000. Moreover, while at NCCU, over the past 3 years, Dr. Livingston and students have developed a lecture series to recognize faculty that have served NCCU over the past 20 years. Faculty from various departments have had the opportunity to present their research and discuss the challenges that they’ve overcome on the road to the PhD. Currently, Dr. Livingston is working in conjunction with the Women’s Center for funding to training young men to educate other young men about intimate partner violence.

Ms. School of Business 2010-2011

Interviewed by:
Keisha V. Wright,
Senior, Accounting Major
Vanceboro, NC

On March 30, Dr. James H. Johnson Jr. will serve as keynote speaker for NCCU’s Honors Convocation.  He is an alumnus of North Carolina Central University, having earned his Bachelor of Science in geography in 1975.  Currently, he is director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center, Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, and William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC – CH).   

An expert in business demography, Dr. Johnson offered these reflections for our Eagle View readers.

Can you describe what you do?

“It’s chaotic,” he said.  A whole host of research interests occupy Dr. Johnson’s attention at UNC – Chapel Hill. Topping the list are minority entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, sustainable community development, and the management of workplace diversity — all with an eye to poverty alleviation. 

Johnson teaches courses at the Kenan-Flagler Business School and works very closely with the university’s Association of Minority Business Students.   He makes it clear to his UNC – CH classes that both philanthropy and social entrepreneurship should be hallmarks of their careers.  “They need to learn to give back,” he said.  “They need to understand to those to whom much is given, much is expected.”

Johnson also runs a summer minority entrepreneurship research boot camp for newly minted Ph.Ds. With a huge wave of current faculty poised to retire, the boot camp is designed to prepare the next generation of young scholars who will assume teaching and research careers in higher education.  

Johnson has been in the business of higher education for a while now.  With obvious pride, he said some of his present-day students “are children of students I taught 25 years ago.”  

Why study population shifts and emerging consumer markets?

“I started my career as a geographer and demographer fascinated with the mass movement of African-Americans from the South and then their return,” said Johnson.  But as a professor at the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA), he turned his attention to the increase in the Hispanic population in L.A. and its impact on the economy.  After 12 years at UCLA, Johnson brought this research focus and interest in business demography home to North Carolina when this state was starting to experience a similar demographic shift. “I began studying the Hispanic population when nobody recognized its impact on the economy,” said Johnson.  “The economic contributions of people of color will play pivotal role in the state’s prosperity over the next 20 years.” 

What’s the secret to your success?

“It’s no secret.  It all began with Theodore Speigner, my geography professor at NCCU,” said Johnson.  “I was his last student, out of 17, to receive a Ph.D.”   Johnson relayed the story of an amazing professor who was devoted to developing “a cadre of men and women who grew up on peanut farms, preparing them to earn graduate degrees.”  According to Johnson, Dr. Theodore R. Speigner took a demanding, hands-on approach that continued long after graduation from NCCU.  He directed his students to leave the South to seek their masters’ and Ph.D. degrees at universities in the Midwest, but also UCLA and Berkeley.  Johnson attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison (M.S., 1977), and Michigan State University (Ph.D., 1980).  All the while, Speigner kept in touch with phone calls about the success of other classmates like the late Dr. Jasper Harris, who would become chair of the NCCU Department of Geography.  To Johnson, these conversations were clearly intended to evoke competitive pressure, and to convey Speigner’s very high expectations and concern about the successful completion of his post-graduate degrees. 

Asked about Johnson’s fondest memory of Speigner, he answered, “My fondest memory was having the opportunity to invite him to lecture at UCLA when I was faculty there.  He was a spellbinding lecturer — he spoiled my students for the rest of the semester.” According to Johnson, if you look up the word “mentor” in the dictionary, “there’s a big ole picture of Dr. Speigner there.”

You founded a charter school in Durham.  Why is K–12 education so important to you?

“Our future hinges on getting this right,” said Johnson.  “If we don’t solve the K–12 problem in this country, we don’t stand a chance.”  Johnson explained that as the black and brown birthrates continue to out-pace that of non-Hispanic whites, this country will increasingly depend on her former minorities to compete successfully in the global marketplace.  He warns that America is not prepared, and it is not preparing.  “We won’t have a well-trained workforce if it is not a strategic imperative,” he said. 

Johnson sees a greater role for historically black colleges and universities in providing our elementary, middle and high school students with the tools they need to succeed at the university level.  For his part, in conjunction with Union Baptist Church, Johnson helped found a K–8 charter school on Roxboro Road in Durham called the Global Scholars Academy.  A year-round school with the mission to provide world-class education to vulnerable and at-risk students, Global Scholars Academy offers a highly integrated curriculum that augments the standard course of study with training in entrepreneurship and financial literacy, global awareness, including teaching Mandarin beginning in kindergarten, health and wellness.  “We’re trying to give them a leg up,” said Johnson.  “We reject the deficit model and embrace an education approach anchored in research on successful pathways through child development.” Johnson intends to build more schools like the Global Scholars Academy all over the country, believing he has developed “a robust model for the 21st century.” 

Are you engaged in any other social-entrepreneurial initiatives?

Declaring that eldercare will be a far greater issue than childcare in our immediate future, Johnson has founded a venture called SAFE (Secure Audits For the Elderly).  SAFE workers will be trained to educate the elderly about falls prevention and certified to audit their homes for modifications that will reduce the likelihood of a fall.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that one in three people 65 years and older will fall within the year and it is the leading cause of injury death.  Johnson believes his intervention program can be shown to reduce the likelihood of a fall by 40 percent and thereby reduce Medicaid and Medicare costs.  “The rug on the floor, the height of the commode, even a doorknob can be lethal if it can’t be turned in time to escape a fire,” said Johnson. 

Can you offer any final words of wisdom?

“I’m from Pitt County.  Who would have thought I would make it all the way to UCLA and back to Chapel Hill?” said Johnson.  “My grandmother lived in Eastern North Carolina and had a 3^rd grade education.  She always said, ‘You put your pants on the same way they do.’  I live by that.”