Dr. Millie Johnson

Amid great skepticism from her family, Mildred “Millie” Johnson, Ph.D. (ADP ’04, MSOL ’06) applied to the police academy at Westmoreland County Community College. To everyone’s surprise, she was accepted.

Johnson spent the next 14 years with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police. She found a lot of fulfillment in working with the public and enjoyed those times when she got to see people’s lives genuinely changed for the better within the justice system.

Upon becoming a chaplain for Pittsburgh police officers, Johnson felt called to further her education in order to supplement her new leadership role. She enrolled in Geneva’s Community Ministry program and earned her Geneva bachelor’s degree in 2004. She used her new skills to develop programs for youth and elderly in the community that she was honored to serve and protect. “I learned the importance of transformational leadership; Geneva truly prepared me for my life’s work,” she says.

Johnson returned to Geneva and completed a Master’s in Organizational Leadership in 2006. From there, Johnson went on to receive her doctorate in Strategic Leadership from Regent University in 2014.

Johnson was finally able to realize a childhood dream of becoming a teacher when she accepted professorships at Geneva. She will head up Geneva’s new adult degree criminal justice program that is now accepting applicants for a start in fall 2017.