An Opportunity to Make a Lasting Contribution to Student Success
As an endowed fund, the Johnson Student Research Fund offers supporters the opportunity to contribute to student success at Marist College in a way that will live in perpetuity and make a meaningful impact for students well into the future. Giving is welcome at all levels with the goal of engaging as many HRVI friends, Hudson River Valley Review subscribers, HRVI intern alums, and Hudson River Valley enthusiasts as possible. Contributors who commit at the level of $10,000 and above will be given special recognition on HRVI’s Digital Library and in printed materials for the Johnson Student Research Fund.
Enriching Experience with Real-World Benefit
Many of HRVI’s intern alums cite their internship experiences as being a transformative time in their development from undergraduate students to job candidates and professionals. Often, the publication credit and portfolio materials that come from an HRVI internship become a focal point of graduate school admittance and job interviews. Additionally, working with the HRVI staff is the first time many Marist students put their classroom education to use in a professional setting, producing materials that are utilized to promote various dimensions of Hudson River Valley history or published in a variety of potential formats.
About James and Lois Johnson
Colonel (Ret.) James M. Johnson, Ph.D. is the Dr. Frank T. Bumpus Chair in Hudson River Valley History at Marist College where he taught courses in military and Hudson River Valley history from 2000-2018 and served as founding Executive Director of the Hudson River Valley Institute from 2002-2021. Prior to coming to Marist, he served for thirty years in the U.S. Army, commanding two field artillery batteries in Germany and Korea and teaching for fifteen years in two tours in the Department of History at West Point. In his second tour there, he headed the military history program, rising to the rank of Professor of History. Dr. Johnson has a degree from the United States Military Academy, as well as a Master of Arts and Ph.D. in History from Duke University, and a Masters of Arts in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College. He has served as the Military Historian of the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area since 1999.
Lois S. Johnson is a native of Middletown, New York, and a retired speech therapist and classroom educator. Prior to her retirement in 2012, she had lengthy teaching tenures at Orange-Ulster BOCES, in the Highland Falls-Fort Montgomery Central School District, and at West Point Schools as well as holding positions in Newport, Rhode Island, Fairfax, Virginia, and in Heidelberg and Bamberg, Germany. She has a Bachelor of Science degree from the State University of New York at New Paltz, and a Master of Science degree from Long Island University.
Together Jim and Lois have served the region through their involvement with the Friends of the American Revolution at West Point, Boscobel House and Gardens, and the Constitution Island Association, among many other organizations. They both helped to form the 5th New York Regiment of American Revolution reenactors and have been dedicated advocates for historic preservation throughout the Hudson River Valley, including at their eighteenth-century Blooming Grove, New York home.
The Hudson River Valley Institute at Marist College
Established in 2002, HRVI is a Center of Excellence at Marist College that studies and promotes the diverse history of the Hudson River Valley. HRVI provides information about the region’s culture, economy, environment, and educational resources through its Digital Library at www.hudsonrivervalley.org, through public programming, and through its biannual journal, The Hudson River Valley Review. To date, HRVI has hosted internship experiences for nearly 200 Marist College undergraduates from majors including history, English, political science, marketing, communications, business, and more. Its annual programs, including the endowed Handel-Krom and Cunneen-Hackett Lectures in Hudson River Valley History, reach in excess of 1,000 people per year, and have been available online on-demand since 2020.