Karl E. Johnson – Executive Director
Prior to becoming Executive Director in 2021, Karl served as Founder of Chesterton House at Cornell. He received his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from Cornell University and served for ten years as the inaugural Dan Tillemans Director of the Cornell Team and Leadership Center. In 2008, Karl became a founding board member of the Consortium—he served on the board for ten years and as board chair for five years.
Karl’s first career was Outdoor Education. His education included a 5000-mile cross-country bicycle trip, a 21-day NOLS course, mountaineering expeditions in Latin America and ten weeks aboard SEA’s tall ships Westward and Corwith Cramer. As an undergraduate student, he taught Physical Education classes in Backpacking, Bicycle Touring and Basic Mountaineering. He also started the first service-oriented Physical Education class at Cornell, Trail Maintenance. As director of the Cornell Team and Leadership Center, he designed the Hoffman Challenge Course, the largest university-based facility of its kind in North America, and provided leadership development programs for corporations such as Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase. In addition to consulting work as a trainer and expert witness, he is the proud namesake of two facilities—a yurt, in recognition of twenty years of service to Cornell Outdoor Education, and a privy, for service to the Cayuga Trails Club.
Karl received an M.S. and Ph.D. from Cornell’s Department of Natural Resources where he focused on the history and philosophy of recreation and leisure. He has received grants from Atlantic Philanthropies and The Lilly Endowment and has guest lectured at many universities around the country. He was recognized as an Academy of Leisure Sciences Future Scholar and has received several writing awards, including the 2014 Literary Award of the Christian Society of Kinesiology and Leisure Studies. His interests include human relations with the natural landscape, from wilderness to urban environs, and his publications on related topics have appeared in Christian Scholar’s Review, Journal of Experiential Education, Leisure/Loisir, and in popular publications such as Books & Culture, Taproot, re:generation quarterly and New York State Conservationist.
In 2000, Karl founded Chesterton House, a Center for Christian Studies at Cornell. The ministry began with public lectures and discussion groups on wide-ranging topics, grew to include accredited courses and eventually developed a two-acre campus housing over forty students living in intentional Christian community.
In 2019, after twenty years at Chesterton House, Karl and his wife Julie became the owners of First Century Voyages, a travel company that serves churches and Christian non-profit organizations with biblical heritage tours. In 2020, Karl helped launch the Octet Collaborative (MIT) in the capacity of Chief Strategist. In 2021, he succeeded Drew Trotter as Executive Director of the Consortium.
After living in Ithaca, NY for over 30 years, Karl and Julie now reside in Chattanooga, TN. They have five (mostly) grown children scattered from Boston to Los Angeles.
Articles
- “The Book on Leadership.” Karl E. Johnson and Ryan O’Dowd, Common Good Magazine, no. 12, July 16, 2023.
- “Remembering David McCullough, a ‘Tour Guide to the Past.‘” In Cornellians, January 4, 2023.
- “From Sabbath to Weekend: Religious Advocacy for a Weekly Day of Recreation.” In Christianity and Leisure, edited by P. Heintzman and G. Van Andel. Vol. 2. Sioux Center, IA: Dordt Press, 2017.
- “Labor, Leisure, and Liberty.” Christian Scholar’s Review 46, no. 1 (2016): 85-96.
- “Non-sectarianism Reconsidered.” Patheos, April 29, 2015.
- “How Shall We Then Rest?” Books & Culture, July/August 2010.
- Johnson, K., and K. Yoder. “Chemist as Complementarian: An Interview with Robert C. Fay.” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 61, no. 4 (2009): 1-6.
- “Problematizing Puritan Play.” Leisure/Loisir 33, no. 1 (2009): 31-54.
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“The Curious Case of Galileo Galilei (in which he does not go to jail).” Sightings, June 4, 2009.
- “Re:Creation.” Review of E.O. Wilson’s The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth. Translations 1, no. 1 (2007): 10-11. Reprinted in Taproot 17, no. 1 (2007): 21-22.
- “A More Inclusive Pluralism.” Herald Examiner 20, no. 12 (2009): 2.
- Review of John Sommerville’s The Decline of the Secular University. Critique (2006): 13-15.
- “Murderer as Minister.” Gilbert Magazine 8, no. 4 (2005).
- Baer, R., J. Tantillo, G. Hitzhusen, K. Johnson, and J. Skillen. “From Delight to Wisdom: 30 Years of Teaching Environmental Ethics at Cornell.” Worldviews 8, nos. 2-3 (2004): 298-322. Reprinted in Teaching Environmental Ethics, edited by Clare Palmer. Boston, MA: Brill Academic Publishers (2006).
- “Six Days Thou Shalt Labor, More or Less: Busyness and the Business of Heaven.” re:generation quarterly 7, no. 3 (2001).
- “The Virtues of Fishing.” In First Cast: Teaching Kids to Fly-Fish, edited by P. Genova. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1998: 6-8. Reprinted in Texas Fish & Game 17, no. 12 (2002). Reprinted as “Time Well Wasted” in New York State Conservationist 58, no. 5 (2004).
- “The Status of Theology: Revisiting Andrew Dickson White’s ‘Warfare’ Thesis at 100 Years.” Cornell Political Forum 11, no. 3 (1997): 9-13.
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