FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feb. 16, 2007

Columbus resident earns MUW degree after 15 years

By Jill D. O’Bryant
  
COLUMBUS, Miss. -- David J. Johnson of Columbus, who earned a bachelor’s degree in general business from Mississippi University for Women in December, did so by taking one or two courses each semester for 15 years.
   
Describing education as “continuous” and his experience at MUW as “great” because his professors “realized the uniqueness of the non-traditional student,” Johnson said he learned a lot more than just general business during his years at MUW.
   
He said he learned how to experience “debt freedom,” “the importance of physical exercise, nutrition and mental health on the body, mind, soul and spirit of the individual” and “that the true issues of life come from the heart.”
   
An employee of Omnova for 35 years, Johnson took courses through the company’s tuition reimbursement program, which paid for each course because he made a letter grade of C or above.
   
In addition to working at Omnova, he has served as a pastor for 17 years. He has been at Salem M. B. Church in Carrollton, Ala., for the past eight years where he has used the computer skills he learned at MUW to teach a computer class in his church as a ministry to elderly members.
   
“The challenge of education is application,” Johnson said. “With education the individual can find a way to apply what is learned.”
   
Prior to enrolling at MUW in 1992, he earned a certificate of Christian education and pastoral teaching from New Orleans Baptist Seminary through extension courses and an associates degree in management and supervision technology from East Mississippi Community College by taking evening courses for four years.
   
He said life inputs, such as experiences, education, people and God determine life outputs, and he uses the motto “a never ending journey on this side of the river: the education journey.”