MACON – Dr. Waldo E. Johnson Jr., Mercer alumnus and associate professor at the University of Chicago, will speak on “Keeping Our Sons Safe: Father-Son Communication for Preventing Violence Involvement and Victimization” Feb. 12 as part of the University’s African American History Month programming.
The event, free and open to the public at 6:30 p.m. in the Presidents Dining Room, is co-sponsored by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Stetson-Hatcher School of Business and the Department of Africana Studies.
Dr. Johnson is a 1977 graduate of Mercer’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, where he majored in sociology and English.
He went on to earn his Master of Social Work from the University of Michigan and Ph.D. in social work from the University of Chicago. He was a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Scholar in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.
In the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, he teaches research methods, human behavior in the social environment and social welfare policy courses for undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students. He also serves as a faculty affiliate for the University’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture.
Dr. Johnson has published extensively on nonresident fatherhood and the life course experiences of urban African American males. He is the editor of Social Work with African American Males: Health, Mental Health and Social Policy (Oxford University Press, 2010).
“Dr. Johnson is a distinguished alumnus of the University, and we are honored to have him impart his wisdom and research upon the Mercer community during African American History Month,” said Dr. Ansley Booker, director of diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Dr. Johnson’s active research affiliations include the Manseuto Institute for Urban Innovation at the University of Chicago; the Program for Research on Black Americans in the Institute for Social Research, the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health in the School of Public Health and the Scholars Network on Masculinity and the Well-Being of African American Males, all at the University of Michigan; the Poverty and Transitions to Adulthood Network at the University of Wisconsin–Madison; and the Working Group on Health Disparities in Men and Boys in the Public Interest Directorate of the American Psychological Association.
He previously served on the Steering Committee for the Fatherhood Research and Practice Network at Temple University and the Welfare Research and Family Self-Sufficiency Technical Working Group in the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, an office of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Dr. Johnson has received research support from the Chicago Community Trust, the Ford, MacArthur and Annie E. Casey foundations and the National Institutes of Health, including his recent role as a senior research methods consultant for the Parents and Children Together Study, the federal ACF mixed-methods longitudinal responsible fatherhood and healthy marriage study during the Obama administration led by Mathematica Policy Research.
