A champion of community and a tireless volunteer, Edith Johnson’s esteemed contributions to the UMAA and its members will resonate for years to come. While earning her BA in Speech Communication from the College of Liberal Arts in 1977, Johnson served as a TA for two years under esteemed African-American professor, Dr. Anita Tucker Brooks. Experiences like these, in addition to growing up in the era of segregation, led Johnson to become a changemaker, working to redefine housing and redevelopment at the City of Minneapolis, as well as actively volunteering in her community as a human rights commissioner, youth mentor, and non-profit board member. Later in life, Johnson turned her focus to child advocacy as board member and chairperson of the Loan Review Committee of First Children’s Finance (FCF), which has distributed millions of dollars to support high-quality child care and early education in for-profit and nonprofit homes and centers that serve children from low and moderate income households and underserved communities throughout the Midwest.
Now retired, Johnson splits her time between Minnesota and Nevada, where she single-handedly started the UMAA’s Las Vegas Chapter, which serves over 900 alumni in the Las Vegas area. Johnson joined the Las Vegas Big 10 Universities board to help expand opportunities for U of M graduates in the area. She is also an active participant in the UMAA’s Geographic Council.