Joseph Kardos

Dr. Carol Siri Johnson

Eng 352-004 Technical Writing
10 March 2009
Dr. Carol Siri Johnson: A Product of One’s Childhood
Dr. Carol Siri Johnson, an assistant professor of technical writing at New
Jersey Institute of Technology, has become known at the school for her introduction
of Legos to her technical writing curriculum. Previously a technical communicator in
computer industry for seven years, Johnson never imagined that she would become
a technical writer. However, after a careful assessment of her past, one could
identify how her passion for education and industrial archaeology was the product
of the efforts of her parents and her childhood in upstate New York.
The daughter of a teacher and a forester, Johnson’sfamily was highly involved
in education. Johnson’s mother, a high school French teacher, attended school on a
Fulbright scholarship in France, and her mother, Johnson’s grandmother, was also a
teacher, obtaining her education at the University of Florence in the late 1800s(rare
for this time period). Her father, a forester for the Department of Environmental
Protection, also taught forestry at a State University of New York (SUNY) camp.
Although she discovered her passion for teaching later in her career, her exposure
to education as a child surely influenced her career path.
Johnson’s childhood also initiated her interest in industrial archeology. Living
with meager means in upstate New York, Johnson’s family would hike and camp for
vacation; as a result, she developed an interest in the outdoors. When she lived in
the suburbs of Albany, NY, Johnson and her father would visit derelict buildingsto
search and explore on their own. As a child, she played in an old, abandoned
ironworks. Later in her career, Johnson joined the North Jersey Highlands Historical
Society of Ringwood, giving tours of old sites so she could further investigate local
mines, ironworks, or anything else interesting in the woods.
Johnson, however, did not recognize her passion for teaching and industrial
archaeology until later in her career after obtaining her doctorate from the City
College of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. She originally graduated in 1980 from
Mount Holyoke College with a major in Studio Artand spent several years trying to
be an artist. However, her past finally brought her to her present career. It is
interesting to note how her interest in education and industrial archaeology has
finally overlapped; Johnson published a book in January 2009 chronicling the
technical correspondence of an iron company. Reminiscent of her childhood days in
upstate New York, Johnson currently resides in Oak Ridge, NJ, where she can indulge
her passion for industrial ruins in her free time as she continues to educate students
in technical writing at NJIT.