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Tri-C President, Dr. Alex Johnson, discusses career and upcoming retirement

Picture of a building on the Cuyahoga Community College Metro Campus. [Tri-C]
Picture of a building on the Cuyahoga Community College Metro Campus. [Tri-C]

Cuyahoga Community College will see a change in leadership this summer.

Current president, Dr. Alex Johnson will retire at the end of next month and hand the reins to Michael Baston who will lead the college beginning on July 1.

Johnson has served the Tri-C community for nearly 20 years—and has been the college’s president since 2013. 

Dr. Johnson is just the fourth president in Tri-C’s 58-year history.  His tenure has been marked by the college’s expansion—not just of physical campus buildings but also of career and job opportunities and  increasing graduation rates.

Dr. Johnson’s tenure as Tri-C president caps a 40-year career in higher education.

Dr. Fiona Hill drew national attention from the public, and the media, when when she testified in the first impeachment proceedings against former President Donald Trump, in 2019. Now with the Brookings Institution, a think tank, Hill has penned a memoir, called "There is Nothing for You Here." 

The book touches on her time in the Trump White House, but book also draws parallels between economic dislocation in formerly vibrant manufacturing centers -- such as her native northern England -- Russia, and even here in the Great Lakes region to the rise in populism that is testing the strength of the world's democracies, including our own.

Dr. Hill was in town last week at the invitation of the Cleveland Council on World Affairs for an event titled: From Russia to Rustbelts: Witness to Democratic Fragility. 

She dropped by our studios during her visit to discuss her memoir, Vladimir Putin, and the invasion of Ukraine.

Dr. Fiona Hill is a Senior Fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. She came to Cleveland at the invitation of the Cleveland Council on World Affairs which seeks to bring national experts, government officials and diplomats in to explore relevant and timely geopolitical topics. CCWA Calendar of events

Cleveland City Council has approved increased penalties for riding off-road vehicles, such as dirt bikes, on city streets.  Council voted for the increased penalties at its meeting on Monday night. Those riding dirt bikes or driving all-terrain vehicles or other vehicles deemed a nuisance will face a one-thousand dollar fine.

The move by council came after a large-scale crackdown on dirt bike riders over the weekend—the first of its kind in several  years by the city.  The crackdown, named Operations Wheels Down, ended in 15 riders arrested on felony charges, citations for nearly three dozen other, and 15-vehicles seized by police.  Two riders who tried to flee police were involved in crashes, with one of those ending in serious injuries to the rider.

Dirt bike and off-road vehicle riding has been a  hot-button issue in the city for several years  and has led to increased calls of action from residents.

 

Alex  Johnson, Ph.D., President, Cuyahoga Community College 
Fiona Hill, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Brookings, Author, "There is Nothing for You Here" 
Matt Richmond, Reporter, Ideastream Public Media 

Leigh Barr is a coordinating producer for the "Sound of Ideas" and the "Sound of Ideas Reporters Roundtable."