Voices that Inspire

What inspires you from WFSU Public Media? Here's this week's voices that inspire. I'm Kenya Washington Johnson. I'm an assistant professor of criminal justice in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice housed in the College of Social Sciences Arts and Humanities at Florida A&M University. I'm the principal investigator for a grant from the NE Casey Foundation. In 2014, they launched an initiative called the Florida HBCU Juvenile Justice Talent Pipeline. The goal is to be purposeful about increasing the number of minority professionals who enter into the Juvenile Justice workforce already armed with a race equity lens, with a reform lens, and with the skills necessary to be catalyst for change. They have this idea that everything that you do should be focused and tied towards that result. They call it results count, and it's got lots of different parts. But that spoke so much to me because it's consistent with my genuine belief that you can take what you have and move purposefully towards the goal or the place that you want to be. A philosophy that is kind of one of the foundations of their approach is personal system. If we want to have them enter into the workforce with a race equity lens, with a reform lens, but most importantly, with the skills that are required to be catalyst for change, then that means that we need to figure out how to not only deliver information, but to deliver it in a way that develops skill, which then leads to wisdom. My name is Kenya Washington Johnson, and I am an assistant professor of criminal justice in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice housed in the College of Social Sciences, arts and humanities at Florida A&M University. You're listening to voices that inspire.