Johnson Named NCEP Professor of the Month

The Network of Conservation Educators & Practitioners (NCEP) has named Gustavus Adolphus College professor Dr. Cindy Johnson its September 2011 Professor of the Month. Johnson is the Executive Director of the Linnaeus Arboretum and Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies at the College.

The NCEP is a global project to improve the practice of biodiversity conservation by improving training in biodiversity conservation. NCEP targets educators working with undergraduate and graduate students, and trainers working with conservation professionals in a variety of settings.

For the past two years, Johnson used a Fulbright scholarship to teach and conduct research at the College of African Wildlife Management in Tanzania. Johnson is now back in St. Peter teaching conservation biology, but her ties to Tanzania remain strong.

Prior to her Fulbright in Tanzania, Johnson had taken numerous Gustavus students on safari to Tanzania during the College’s January Interim Experience since 1997. During those safaris, Johnson’s students visited important conservation sites and learned about Tanzania. Now she is working on a “reverse safari” that will enable 10 Tanzanian students to visit important conservation sites in the United States.

This past summer, Johnson returned to the U.S. along with two of her Tanzanian students as a prototype of this “reverse safari”. The two Tanzanian students visited conservation sites in Minnesota, including the Boundary Waters, while the trip concluded with visits to Chicago and New York City. Johnson hopes to bring more students from Tanzania to the United States in the future as part of a more formal exchange tour focusing on conservation.

“Gustavus students are fortunate to have opportunities to visit places like Tanzania. Unfortunately Tanzanian conservation students do not have the financial resources to visit places like the United States,” Johnson said. “As global citizens, it is our responsibility to share our wealth and our knowledge and to enable others to broaden their ideas, visions, and experiences. We must work together to educate others about the importance of saving wild spaces and species. NCEP is ultimately about saving biodiversity, and the more people, including Tanzanian students, we can involve the more successful we will be.”