Dr. Terrence L. "Kojo" Johnson '93 has recently been selected as the next Mary Lee Hardin Willard Dean of Candler School of Theology at Emory University. A highly regarded academic leader and scholar as well as an ordained minister, Dr. Johnson is the Director of Religion and Public Life and the Charles G. Adams Professor of African American Religious Studies at Harvard Divinity School. He will begin his term on August 1, 2026. As a seminary of The United Methodist Church (UMC), Candler is devoted to educating faithful and creative leaders for the church’s ministries worldwide and to developing programs that meet the evolving needs of its students. This is especially true now, as Candler has continued to expand its reach through innovative online and hybrid degree options, The Candler Foundry, and La Mesa Academy for Theological Studies.
Dr. Johnson’s extensive leadership experience includes his current role as Director of Religion and Public Life at Harvard, where he has focused on expanding the program’s reach, restoring interfaith relationships, building revenue-generating executive education programs, and setting new research priorities. He launched the Black and Jewish Leadership Initiative with a 30-member inaugural cohort; established new research priorities across religion and liberalism, ethics and law, and religion and capitalism; secured new donor support for interreligious programming; and redesigned the Master of Religion and Public Life degree to better integrate public scholarship with professional formation.
Prior to Harvard, Dr. Johnson served as Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Georgetown University, where he spearheaded a partnership between the university and the Smithsonian Institution. As Chair of Political Theory in the Department of Government, Dr. Johnson nurtured interdisciplinary collaboration, helped secure new postdoctoral and junior faculty lines, and promoted research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. He also played a key role in the creation of Georgetown’s Humanities Center.
Dr. Johnson is an accomplished scholar whose work complements Candler’s longstanding tradition of advancing impactful scholarship. His interdisciplinary research weaves together African American religions, political theory, and American history to explore questions of democracy, ethics, justice, and the role of religion in public life. He is the author of multiple books, including the forthcoming Torn Asunder: Race and Religion in the Shadow of Law and Justice, which will focus on African American religious thought, ethics, and political theory in relation to political pluralism and moral reasoning.
Dr. Johnson earned a bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College, his master of divinity from Harvard Divinity School, and his PhD from Brown University. He is a faculty associate of Harvard’s Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, a core faculty member for the university’s Program in American Studies, a member of the Department of African and African American Studies, and a member of the Corporation of Haverford College. He also serves as co-editor of the Harvard Theological Review and, along with Emory's Dianne Stewart and Harvard's Jacob Olupona, co-edits the book series "Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People" at Duke University Press.
Please join the Morehouse Community in celebrating Dr. Johnson on this significant achievement!