PRATT AFTER KJ

When Kristina Johnson announced in July that she would step down as dean of the Pratt School of Engineering to become provost at Johns Hopkins University, she knew she was leaving a lot behind. She was leaving behind an engineering school that had grown in its curriculum, its physical appearance and its student and faculty population to become one of the best-recognized engineering schools in the country. She was leaving behind a group of engineers that love her and a campus that will miss her, and she was leaving behind a legacy.

When asked to name Johnson's single-greatest accomplishment at Duke, interim Dean Rob Clark makes it out to be an impossible task. He lists scores of changes Johnson made, including improvements to culture, curriculum, research and facilities. Then he tells a story.

"We would walk across the campus together and be engaged in conversation. and if there was a piece of trash lying on the ground, anywhere, she'd bend over, pick it up and always put it in the trash can. So that was one thing about Kris is that she had a sense of pride in the campus," he says. "Maybe that's the one thing you think of with Kristina, is that there really was no detail too small for her to recognize."

It was this attention to detail that enabled the design and development of CIEMAS, a tenfold increase in Pratt's endowment and a 20-percent growth in the engineering student population.

Johnson, however, points to the formulation of a strategic vision as the school's biggest accomplishment under her deanship. Developing a new strategic plan for Pratt enabled all the changes that were to follow.

"All told, getting that plan together was a big accomplishment, and after that, that just drove everything we did," she says. "I think that it was creating a shared vision for the school."

Her colleagues and students perhaps speak most fondly, however, of the way in which Johnson was able to draw everyone in Pratt together and develop an inclusive sense of community.

Engineers wear Pratt shirts, drink at E-Kegs, party at E-Ball and, in short, have a sense of Pratt pride and culture that has no equivalent in the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences.

"She was just a very personable person.. When I became [ESG] president, she sent me a card and said congratulations, little things like that," Krishnamohan says. "We knew that if we had a problem we could go and talk to her and she would actually listen."

Johnson says that Pratt's small size facilitated the opportunity for her to promote a connected culture among the administrators, students, faculty and staff.

"I think that I really care deeply about everybody and everything at the school. When you're smaller it's easier to make that connection," she says. "That's how I would define my time at Duke and Pratt-it was very much people-centered."

She says she hopes that Clark, the students and her successor will be able to maintain the sense of community that has come to define Pratt, as well as continue the momentum the school has gained over the past few years.

Krishnamohan says that though some engineers participate in Duke Student Government, much of the organization's work revolves around Trinity, which serves the majority of students. Separated then from Duke Student Government and addressing various issues relevant to engineering students, ESG strives to promote Pratt culture.

"It's [ESG's] mission to form a culture, but it's not our mission to spread it around," Krishnamohan says. "Our goal basically is to get [Pratt students] involved in engineering activities, groups, make them more aware of what is going on on the engineering campus."

She adds that because Trinity students notice the Pratt-centric activities and often attend as dates or friends of Pratt students, the designation of an "engineering culture" is made even clearer. Even though Pratt students spend a lot of time together, most have maintained a group of friends who are English, psychology or art history majors as well, which Krisnamohan says is different from the strict exclusivity of engineers at some other universities.

"By inadvertently bringing in Trinity people to E-Social, people are more aware that there is a Pratt culture. If we did only hang out with Pratt kids, we wouldn't really have Trinity people come to E-Ball," she says. "It's not like MIT or Johns Hopkins engineers. the BMEs at Hopkins are a certain type. If you're [a Duke] engineer, you're still involved in Trinity life."

Johnson was the first female dean at Pratt, and Clark says that though the presence of female engineers and female engineers in academia is becoming increasingly popular, one of Johnson's contributions to Pratt was making a distinctive effort to recruit female faculty members.

"Another thing that's changed in Pratt is the number of women faculty we have in the school of engineering. In terms of the percentage base for our faculty, there's really no other place like the Pratt School," Clark says, adding that he expects the female culture to be sustained even after Johnson's departure. "The faculty who come to Pratt and visit see something that's different.. Kristina most certainly, as a leader of the school, brought that to bear, but once it's in place it's like the seeds are planted and it's growing, and just a little water will keep everything flourishing."

Johnson says she would have liked to see a number of things happen at Pratt and at Duke before she left-including the opening of the the research-oriented Excel Program, and the expansion of Pratt faculty to 120-but that with the way things are going, these developments are inevitable and imminent.

She says it has been satisfying to see what Pratt students go on to do after they graduate, adding that an increasing number of students have pursued graduate school or research experience in recent years.

"I have two favorite days of the year," Johnson says. "One's convocation and one's graduation, and everything in between is just the journey."

Now that Johnson has, in effect, graduated from Duke with the Class of 2007, it's safe to say that her journey here must have been a very satisfying and successful one.

"There's no one else in the world like KJ," Krishnamohan says.