Rebecca Johnson

Rebecca Johnson has been a volunteer social justice activist and organizer throughout her life. As current Gandhi Institute board president and active volunteer, Rebecca seeks to find ways to collaboratively and effectively address urgent social issues. Her current Gandhi Institute activities include teaching and studying peace-making communication (a.k.a. Non-Violent Communication, http://www.cnvc.org/); participating as a member of the steering committee for the Season for Nonviolence (http://bethechangerochester.org/) ; promoting interracial dialogue and racial justice (in collaboration with Facing Race, Embracing Equity, http://www.facebook.com/FacingRaceEmbracingEquity/timeline);  and practicing and promoting restorative justice (along with Partners in Restorative Initiatives (http://www.pirirochester.org/about/about.htm) and Restorative Rochester (http://www.restorativerochester.org/home.html). She has also trained as a mediator with Rochester’s Center for Dispute Settlement, http://www.cdsadr.org/about-locations.html).

Rebecca received a B.A. in Psychology from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Catholic University of America. She practiced as a clinical psychologist in Maryland until 1989, when she was promoted to full-time parenthood. Later, she became the primary facilitator of her two sons’ homeschool education. Rebecca accompanied her husband, Bill Destler, to Rochester when he became president of the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2007.

At RIT, Rebecca is active in both formal and informal roles. She sits the campus-wide Committee for Sustainable Practices and is the founder of the greenRITnetwork (gRITnetwork). She is a member of the Advisory Board for the Multicultural Center for Academic Success (MCAS) and, along with her husband, founded RIT’s Rochester City Scholars Program, which provides full-tuition scholarship to income-eligible Rochester city youth who attend RIT. She serves on the committee for the campus’s Gray Matter series, which aims to promote civil discussion of divergent views on important topics. She is an informal advisor to several students and student groups.