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Dr. Eric Johnson Speaks at 2004 Fall Commencement

Dakota State University fall commencement was held Sunday, December 19 at the Fieldhouse. Over 100 graduates participated in the ceremony; 80 Bachelor degree recipients, 15 Masters, and 7 Associates.

Dr. Eric Johnson, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences was the commencement speaker. Dr. Johnson has been with Dakota State since 1969. He earned his Ph.D degree from the University of Notre Dame, his B.A and M.A. degrees from Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Johnson has the distinction of being the first (and only) Dean of the College of Liberal Arts; he was selected immediately after the mission change in 1984. He became the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 2003 when the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Natural Sciences were merged.

As a dean, Dr. Johnson designed new majors of the College, including English for Information Systems. He was central in the development and growth of two of the University’s newest majors: Multimedia/Web Development and Computer Graphic Design. He was also instrumental in the most recent addition to DSU’s major list, Scientific Forensic Technology.

While at DSU, Dr. Johnson has taught a variety of English courses, most recently focusing on teaching and research in the area of computer text analysis. He has created software used by DSU students and administration, and is the author or editor of more than one hundred published scholarly volumes and articles. He served as the Director of the International Conference on Symbolic and Logical Computing six times and he edited the refereed conference proceedings. He has also presented more than fifty scholarly papers and has presented the keynote address at two international conferences.

Dr. Johnson has announced his retirement from Dakota State University effective June 2005.