New Ohio State leader talks COVID-19, athletics and goals for her presidency
When Kristina M. Johnson stepped onto Ohio State University’s campus this week, she was not only walking into the first day of a new job.
She was stepping into the presidency of one of the largest universities in the country as it juggles a global pandemic, a fall without football and a racial awakening across the country.
In Johnson’s first few official days as president, the university reported 882 positive COVID-19 tests since Aug 14; its medical center announced it was participating in a sizable COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial; and President Donald Trump tweeted promises about Big 10 football.
With a masked smile (and from 6 feet away) Johnson greeted students on her first day Tuesday outside the Jesse Owens North Recreation Center, where the university was conducting mandatory COVID-19 testing.
“That thing is a machine; it’s awesome,” she said of the testing center later Thursday in an interview with The Dispatch, noting that students showed up at their appointment times, maintained physical distance, and were in and out quickly, with surfaces cleaned in between.
Some of Johnson’s first actions, even before she officially started Tuesday, included ramping up Ohio State’s testing efforts, to ensure all on-campus students and those who come to campus for classes are tested regularly. She also told students in August that maximum class sizes would be limited to 50 rather than 100, and the university was working to build up its contact tracing efforts.
Johnson, 63, said the COVID-19 preparation plans put in place by Ohio State’s COVID-19 transition task force over the summer were “extraordinary,” but that officials had learned more about the virus and best practices, which called for those extra measures she announced in August.
“I felt that if we tested more, then we could be even more proactive, keeping our students, faculty and staff safe because we'd actually be able to identify individuals that were positive, we could isolate them, we could then quickly contact trace, and then quarantine those that had been exposed,” she said.
She called it a “big pivot” that Ohio State was fortunate enough to be able to do.
Johnson was hired as president of Ohio State with a contract that goes until 2025 at an annual salary of $900,000.
Despite all the school is doing, students fear their lives could change in an instant if COVID-19 numbers continue to rise and cause the university to shut down residence halls and return to online-only learning.
“I like that she’s out introducing herself to the OSU campus,” said Ohio State senior Corey Sweet, who met Johnson as she toured the campus Tuesday in between meetings and visits.
Sweet, a 22-year-old marketing major from Lewis Center, said he hopes the administration will keep students informed as much as possible, given the pandemic-fueled uncertainty this semester.
“I think what they’re trying to do is really take every precaution that they can. I think they’re trying their best,” he said. “Unfortunately, I don’t know if it’s going to help that much. We don’t know what’s gonna happen next. Are we gonna be sent home in a week and half, or are we gonna be here?”
As COVID-19 cases among students climb, could another campus shutdown be imminent?
“Well, that’s not our plan right now. Our plan is to continue to provide faceto-face instruction and hybrid (learning),” Johnson said Thursday. “...We are looking at a number of factors to gauge, No. 1, what will be the health and safety of our students, and then, the health and safety of our communities.”
Johnson’s first week also comes during what would have been the opening week of Ohio State’s football season.
The Buckeyes originally were scheduled to play the University of Illinois Thursday night as part of an adjusted, conference-only schedule.
Instead of the usual fanfare and excitement, the first week of September brought more speculation about a possible football season and when — or if — the Buckeyes could realistically take the field.
“Obviously, everybody knows how I voted,” she said of the Big 10 decision to cancel fall sports. Johnson, along with the college presidents of Iowa and Nebraska, were the three leaders to vote against postponement of fall sports when Big Ten presidents and chancellors met in August.
Though Johnson’s previous institutions such as the State University of New York and Johns Hopkins University might not have been football powerhouses like Ohio Stake, Johnson knows a thing or two about college athletics. She played field hockey at Stanford and founded a women’s club lacrosse team there. She also was honored as one of “40 women who have made an impact” by ESPNW on the 40th anniversary of Title IX in 2012.
Johnson said she called each of the coaches of Ohio State’s fall sports teams when the Big 10 decision came down earlier this summer.
The disappointment of not getting to play is a feeling Johnson and her wife, Veronica Meinhard, know well, she said. Johnson’s own college field hockey career was cut short when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. And Meinhard made the Venezuela national swim team for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, but the South American country didn’t end up sending its swim team to the Games, Johnson said.
“We understand at a very visceral level what it means not to be able to play,” she said.
Johnson said the Big 10 is working through shared protocols across the conference that could allow athletes to return to competition in “clean playing fields,” she said, “meaning, the athletes that are on those fields will not be contagious and can play without the risk of being infected, or infecting others.”
She also shared that Dr. Jim Borchers, head team physician for the Buckeye football program, is chairing the Big 10’s medical committee, one of the conference groups exploring health and safety protocols.
“I am hoping that we will return to competition as soon as possible,” Johnson said. “And I would love for us to compete for a national championship, in all the sports.”
The new president also is developing her goals for the university off the field. One of her signature focuses, she said, will be on cross-disciplinary research across the university, “to distinguish ourselves as an institution that takes on tough problems and solves them.”
After a summer of protests over police officers’ treatment of Black people, one of those tough problems, Johnson said, is building an anti-racist society, noting diversity efforts and tackling racism will be another theme of her presidency.
Recruiting top talent, and particularly, top talent from underrepresented minority groups, has been a signature of her leadership roles at her previous institutions, Johnson said.
“Ohio State will be no different ... I can say for sure that our underrepresented minority faculty are not reflective of the demographics of our student population, or state,” she said. “So that'll be another initiative within our work.”
Johnson said she believes a good leader builds a shared vision, cultivates resources, leverages opportunities and monitors outcomes.
That’s what she plans to do at Ohio State, she said.
“I just need to learn, and that's why I'm making trips every week to each college,” Johnson said. “...So, I've got to meet people, understand the vision and the excellence, and the opportunity.” jsmola@dispatch.com @jennsmola
“Bullish stock market sentiment seems to be nearing a tentative peak as the labor market recovery stalls.”
Technology stocks, which account for a significant chunk of the U.S. stock market’s value, fell broadly. Semiconductor stocks also fell sharply.
The stocks that were doing better than the rest of the market were companies whose stocks have been beaten down this year: travel companies and airlines.
Investors were taking into account the latest economic figures.
The government reported that the number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits fell last week to 881,000, slightly better than what economists had expected. But that said, companies are still letting workers go at numbers well above those seen in the Great Recession, meaning the jobs picture remains still extremely bleak despite recent improvements.
A gauge of the services sector also came in slightly worse than economists were looking for.
“Bullish stock market sentiment seems to be nearing a tentative peak as the labor market recovery stalls,” analyst Edward Moya of Oanda wrote in a report.
The stock market has rallied this spring and summer after plunging in March as investors realized the economic toll the coronavirus pandemic was going to cause. Most of the rally has been on strong performances from tech stocks, but also a hope that the worst of the pandemic is in the past, despite rising infections in schools and the possibility of a second surge of infections in the fall. Huge amounts of support from the Federal Reserve and Congress have also helped bolster the economy.