PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (June 9, 2021) – Two new appointments bestowed on Alvin L. Johnson, Jr., Ed.D., director for Academic Advising Services, gives Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) a seat at both the statewide and national policy tables.
Alvin L. Johnson, Jr., Ed.D.
Johnson, who held positions in learning success and academic transfer advising prior to his arrival at PVAMU in 2018, has been named to a three-year term as an inaugural ex-officio advisor member of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s new Texas Transfer Advisory Committee (TTAC). At the same time, Johnson was elected president-elect of The Association of Deans and Directors of University Colleges and Undergraduate Studies (AD&D). That appointment’s three-year term will include a year as president-elect, a year as president, and then will serve the organization in a one-year advisory role as past president.
“People understand my passion for working with students and helping to remove barriers,” Johnson said when asked for the reasons behind his nomination and election. “I’m so excited to be a part of both organizations and that my presence will ensure that students’ voices are heard.”
AD&D is a membership organization of professionals focused on improving the broad academic experiences of undergraduate students in higher education — by sharing, in Johnson’s words, “ideas about the most effective practices they have used on their campuses, as well as research found in other areas.” As an example, Johnson notes the most dominant area of conversation since the beginning of the pandemic: how institutions moved their face-to-face advisory practices to a virtual environment, and which strategies were most effective. “Because so many students appreciated this virtual environment, how do we integrate it into our normal advisory practices?” asked Johnson. “Virtual resources for students can be beneficial because the one thing everybody is short of is time.”
Johnson begins his term as president-elect as Catherine Buyarski of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis ends her term as president and shifts into the advisory role of past president. “She has been a great resource, and the generosity of leaders on the IUPUI campus is part of why I’m so excited to have been asked to be part of the leadership of the program,” Johnson said. “They’re all very open to sharing resources and informational context.”
His role on the Texas Transfer Advisory Committee brings a PVAMU voice to the improvement of transfer policies, particularly those that affect community college students intending to transfer to a public four-year university (the named priority of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board).
“A lot of my career has been working on behalf of transfer students,” Johnson noted. He said what’s exciting about TTAC is the coordinating board bringing people from across the state to share their experience of working with students to try to make new transfer pathways easier for them.
“The charge of the committee is overseeing the development and implementation of the new transfer policy framework and recommending new pathways for students to complete their Texas core curriculum,” said Johnson. “It ultimately helps students, but it starts by helping the state understand the policies and procedures at the institution level that can often interfere with students just trying to get a degree. How do we remove those stumbling blocks?”
Johnson hopes that his committee will ultimately be successful in informing policy that the coordinating board establishes for the state. “We want to help students enter school with no issues,” he said. “And then, once they’re in the institution, we can ask, ‘What are the things we have in place so that they can continue to pursue their dreams?’”
By Andrew Cohen
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