Kate Johnson

Professor of Philosophy

What is your favorite place on campus?  

I love it out by the water tower. I used to take my kids out there to play when they were little and we lived on campus. I recently went to a fantastic wood fired kiln demonstration, and I’m involved with the compost project that’s going on out there. A lot of good stuff from all around campus converges out there! I also think it is one of the prettiest spots we have.  

What are you excited for in the future?  

For the future of Hanover, I am excited for the energy that seems to be building around sustainability. We recently formed a Sustainability Council that is making headway, and Dr. Delbert from the OT program has gotten a group together who are interested in an organization, called Campus Nature Rx that focuses on the health benefits of being in nature—there’s been some nice synergy! More broadly, some of my colleagues and students have been brought to despair by the election, but Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice, and I know he was right because I see my students bending it. The intelligent, tolerant, worried, working students of Hanover College give me not just hope, but confidence in the future.  

What advice do you have for current students? 

Go to every class! Take classes that sound cool or interesting to you, not just ones that fulfill requirements. Put down your phones and talk to the person sitting next to you in class. Get more sleep. 

What is something your students would be surprised to learn about you?  

I really don’t like speaking in public. Don Carrell, who also teaches philosophy, is my husband. When we first moved here, we lived on Garritt Street next to the Goertz-Bennets and the Jobes. We raised our kids together and spent many hours standing in the road chatting, while our children played on big wheels and wagons. Now we live about three miles from campus, down a long dirt road, surrounded by fields and woods. When we moved here 30 years ago, there was no place to buy good bread, or goat cheese, or lamb, so we began raising goats and sheep and chickens and making our own cheese and bread, etc. We also have a big garden. Raising your own food is an act of resistance! And it’s satisfying and delicious.