Johnson graduates the UI in 3 ½ years

One of Johnson’s earliest memories at the UI was a mortifying moment during her freshman orientation. At the time, her mother was initially horrified that her daughter would be living in Burge because it was a co-ed dorm.

So, Johnson’s mom asked a question of Iowa’s dean of academics during a 1977 freshman orientation when hundreds of accepted Hawkeyes and their parents were in the room, namely: what was the UI’s STD rate?

“I thought I was going to go through the floor,” Johnson said with her eyes closed as if she was living the embarrassing moment all over again. “And he said, ‘Well, I will admit that it’s higher than we would like it to be. And we are certainly working to decrease that number.’”

Johnson’s first steps on the UI campus was actually during that orientation session.

The question Johnson said she’s gotten asked about 10,000 times, both during her time at Iowa and on Capitol Hill, is how did an African American woman like Johnson get from  New Orleans — the Mardi Gras city known as a melting pot of French, American, and African culture — to Iowa City?

Her answer is always the same. In fact, Johnson can still picture the moment her high school teacher suggested considering the UI because of its top-notch writing programs.

“Cheryl, you should consider — you’re a very good writer — you should consider the University of Iowa that has a very good writing program for creative writing, but it also has a good journalism school,” Johnson said her teacher told her.

Johnson was co-editor of her high school yearbook, so the suggestion wasn’t a surprise to her.

The now-62-year-old knew she would go to college but didn’t expect to travel 811 miles to attend one. As someone who had a family-centered childhood, she called herself a homebody. Most of her family stayed in-state and went to schools like Xavier University of Louisiana or Louisiana State University.

Johnson’s excitement and decision to attend the UI came from her reading about the opportunities and education that the UI writing program offered. So, in 1977, Johnson traveled to Iowa City as the first in her family to get a journalism degree outside of Louisiana.

Iowa City wasn’t just going to be a cultural change without events like Mardi Gras parades — it was also going to be a change in climate.

A down jacket or parka? “Never heard of those before I came to Iowa,” Johnson said as she let out a small chuckle.

Snow boots? Her parents argued whether to get them from the Sears in Louisiana or Iowa. But her dad figured Iowa had better boots suited for the Midwest snow.

Despite being 811 miles from home, Johnson said she never felt homesick. During her first semester, Johnson remembers taking around five classes and was finished with her day by 3 p.m. While an early afternoon finish would leave many college students excited, Johnson was eager to take more classes.

Much like her childhood, Johnson liked having a rigorous schedule and found herself excelling with more on her to-do list.

At some points, she said she was taking seven classes — or around 28 semester hours — in a single semester.

“I just started taking more classes,” Johnson said.  “I used to get special permission to take more classes, and the counselor was always like, ‘Okay, you know,  you don’t want to overload yourself.’  But I found, the more classes I had, and the less free time I had, the more structure I had,  I did better.’”

Johnson ended up unintentionally graduating in 3 ½ years, but her undergraduate career wasn’t just time spent on classes.

Like many college students, Johnson had her favorite traditions and experiences at the UI. She has fond memories of living at Burge, Stanley, and Mayflower Residence Halls, like the conversations she had with her first-year roommates who were from Michigan and Iowa.

Every Sunday, Johnson looked forward to eating at a downtown Iowa City restaurant or ordering a pizza because the dining halls were closed. She also joined a sorority and pledged Delta Sigma Theta, which at the time the UI housed the national sorority’s fourth chapter on the UI campus.

Tyna Price, a UI graduate and member of Delta Sigma Theta, met Johnson when she was initiated into the sorority in 1979.

Price called Johnson honest, straight-forward, and a hard worker, and considers her a part of her family. Since graduating from the UI in 1979, Price has stayed in contact with her old sorority sister.

In the same year Johnson joined Delta Sigma Theta, the sorority attended a national convention in New Orleans, and Price said Johnson invited her with seven other members to stay with her family instead of a hotel.

What Price remembers the most from her stay at the Johnson family’s home is their love of food.

“They’d cook breakfast for us before we left them … and we’d come back around five, and they would have cooked dinner,” Price said. “We had really good gumbo and fish, fries, everything that was associated with New Orleans.”

Johnson also dabbled in print journalism during her undergraduate years, which would be the only time she would work at a newspaper. Johnson was a copy editor at The Daily Iowan during her sophomore year, and she completed a 12-week internship with the Des Moines Register and Tribune Editorial Board during the summer before her junior year.

During the internship, Johnson wrote headlines for opinion pieces and a few book reviews. She even interviewed Sen. Chuck Grassley in 1980 during his campaign with the paper’s editorial board, and 40 years later, she works in the same building as Grassley.

Although the UI campus was a majority-white campus, Johnson said the university was a progressive campus and inclusive for minority students. Out of the 30,000 students at the UI, she said only about 1,500 were African American.

That’s certainly not a lot compared to 30,000,” Johnsons said.  “But … it was a very cohesive body. And so, I always felt as though there was a critical mass of African Americans.”