Virginia Tech® home

Founding Dean Cynda Ann Johnson Vision Fund

In February 2018, Cynda Ann Johnson, MD, MBA, announced her plans to retire as founding dean of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. Johnson came to Roanoke, Virginia, in January 2008 tasked with building the school from scratch. A decade later, Johnson retired, staying through the end of the 2018 calendar year while the search for her replacement was underway.

We have formed a fund at the medical school in her name, the Founding Dean Cynda Ann Johnson Vision Fund. Our goal is to endow this fund, so it can be a permanent tribute to her legacy. This endowment also will provide much needed resources to continue evolving the innovative curriculum and entrepreneurial programming that she pioneered for VTCSOM. 

Please use this link to give today.

Or you may mail a check payable to the Virginia Tech Foundation to:
Office of Advancement
VTC School of Medicine
1 Riverside Circle, Suite 107
Roanoke, VA 24016

Additionally, we thought you might enjoy reading the interview with Cynda that was published in the most recent Virginia Tech Magazine, if you have not seen it already.

[Music] Visuals include ground breaking ceremony, ribbon cutting, visuals of the school, white coat ceremony, graduation, news articles, standardized patient interviews. 

[Words on screen]: When founding dean Cynda Ann Johnson started the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, she envisioned a medical school that valued basic science, clinical science, research, and interprofessionalism. 

[Conor O'Neill, class of 2018]: When I interviewed here I remember calling my mom and saying "If I go to school here they will train me to be a good doctor." From year one to year four that has remained true.

[Words on screen]: She pioneered innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit.

[Randy Rhea, Bradley Free Clinic]: She had a vision even before the med school started of somehow getting the students involved and I don't think that even Cynda realized how successful some of their projects would be.

[Rohini Mehta, class of 2015]: Dean Johnson has this philosophy that to be an excellent doctor you have to be a well-rounded person and that was one of the things I really took away from her. 

[Words on screen]: Now we are paying tribute to Dean Johnson as she prepares to retire. We have established the Founding Dean Cynda Ann Johnson Vision Fund to continue her legacy by developing well-rounded physician thought leaders for generations to come.