Dr. Johnson takes education leadership role at MMI

Jolene Johnson, EdD, has been named director of the Munroe-Meyer Institute Department of Education and Child Development.

Dr. Johnson, who joined MMI eight years ago after a stint as a school psychologist at the Westside School District, has been acting director since January.

"I joined MMI because I wanted to impact bigger systems," she said.

She got her wish. As the director of the education department, Dr. Johnson leads a 30-member team that works with 11 metro school districts and other institutions across the state — "from the east all the way to the panhandle, from Sioux City down to Superior," as she puts it — to evaluate programming for youth with the mission to address educational obstacles faced by students statewide.

"We work with entities such as the Learning Community of Douglas and Sarpy Counties, the Buffett Early Childhood Institute, Nebraska Children and Families Foundation," Dr. Johnson said. "We provide evaluation services. Are these programs effective? Who are they reaching? And if they’re not effective, what can we change to improve them? We provide data to the schools and funders so they can improve programming."

"She is a true leader: smart, hardworking, expert in her trade, dedicated to the mission of MMI," said MMI Director Karoly Mirnics, MD, PhD. "She has masterfully managed the department during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is a fine choice to lead the department into the future as MMI explores ways to grow and better serve the department’s clientele."

Jan Handa, statewide coordinator of Nebraska’s 21st Century Community Learning Center, applauded the selection. 

"As Nebraska’s 21st Century Community Learning Center statewide evaluator, Jolene championed the development of a robust quality continuous improvement system we implemented in 150 sites," Handa said.  

Dr. Johnson said she was excited for the opportunity to lead the department of 30 people.

"We have a number of super-smart, innovative people who are really dedicated to quality," she said.

As the leader of the department, Dr. Johnson aims at continued expansion and diversification of services.

"Our department has been built on program evaluation, but we have expertise in a number of areas, including workforce well-being and training in early childhood." she said. "We have people who are invested in public health and community engagement, so I would like to expand into other areas to see how best we can use people’s strengths."

As the department returns to schools this fall after working remotely last year, Dr. Johnson is taking the lessons of the pandemic and applying them to improve programming.

"The challenges of COVID, such as not being on-site, allowed us to pilot other methods — videotaped observation sessions, for example, or connecting with people on Zoom," Dr. Johnson said. "And we found with some of those methods, we had better results. For example, more people showed up for focus groups on Zoom than they might have in person. So we’re exploring new opportunities, especially when we talk about how we best reach rural communities and schools."

Dr. Johnson said she also was happy to bring her department to the new MMI building — the department had been housed off-campus.

"We are very excited to be integrated into MMI as a whole," she said. "We hope perhaps to provide evaluation services for some of our colleagues in other departments or programs. MMI has some great stories to tell, and I’m sure we can help capture the data needed to tell our institute’s story."