Dr. Larry Johnson Named President of Phoenix College

Maricopa Community College District leadership team has a new addition. In July, Dr. Larry Johnson began serving as the sixth president of Phoenix College.

Dr. Johnson previously served as a Campus Provost and Chief Academic Officer at St. Louis Community College, a district which serves more than 70,000 students. As Provost, he championed the implementation of Early College Academies, a partnership with the St. Louis Public School District and the School District of University City. Prior to working at St. Louis Community College, Dr. Johnson served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Broward College South Campus; and as Division Chair for Arts & Sciences and Developmental Education, Student Concerns Officer, and Instructor at Georgia Piedmont Technical College.

Dr. Johnson is a member of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) Presidents’ Round Table and National Council on Black American Affairs. He is actively engaged in national dialogues centered on student retention and completion, and a member of the AACC Commission on Colleges Readiness. Additionally, he is the Presidential Representative to the Community College Division of NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education.

Dr. Johnson has a Doctorate Degree in the Humanities with an emphasis in English Literature from Clark Atlanta University; and a Master’s Degree in Humanities with an emphasis in Medieval to Baroque Studies, as well as a Graduate Certificate in Institutional Research, from Florida State University. He also earned a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University. He is an avid reader and a self-proclaimed “foodie,” so it is appropriate that he finds himself in Central Phoenix. He is also a patron of the arts, and an advocate for the integration of the Humanities as a means to better embrace humanity as a whole.

Dr. Johnson is the author of several academic articles, presentations, webinars, and an autobiography entitled Memoirs of a Young Black Scholar: Surviving and Coping with Loss. He is a mentor for students from diverse backgrounds, and maintains that his purpose in life is to give a voice to the voiceless, in keeping with the words articulated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is ‘What are you doing for others?’”

I hope you will join me in welcoming Dr. Johnson to our District 4 family of neighborhoods, and to Maricopa’s premier Community College serving the greater Central and West Phoenix area. Please do so in person by attending his first President’s Neighborhood Chat on the evening of Thursday, October 25, at the Phoenix College Hacienda Conference Room in the F Building, from 5:30 to 7:00. I look forward to seeing you all there to help me in wishing him the best as PC’s new president!

David Longoria
Council Assistant / Chief of Staff
Phoenix Councilwoman Laura Pastor – District 4