The College of Idaho is proud to celebrate Dr. Rochelle Johnson, who has been named the 2025 recipient of the Idaho Humanities Council’s Outstanding Achievement in the Humanities Award. A distinguished scholar, author, and teacher, Dr. Johnson holds the Bernie McCain Chair in the Humanities and is widely recognized for her interdisciplinary approach to literature, environmental studies, and writing. Her decades-long contributions to the humanities—both in and beyond the classroom—embody the spirit of this award, the IHC’s highest honor.
"IHC is pleased to announce Rochelle Johnson as this year’s recipient of the Outstanding Achievement in the Humanities Award. 🎉
Dr. Johnson holds the Bernie McCain Chair in the Humanities at the College of Idaho where she has taught literature, writing, and environmental studies. A recipient of the Carnegie Foundation’s Idaho Professor of the Year award, she has earned several research fellowships from the Idaho Humanities Council as well as fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society, Yale’s Beinecke Library, and- three times- from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Known for her deeply interdisciplinary approach to learning, Rochelle’s courses include “Knowing Birds,” Visions of Environment,” Science Writing, and “Natural History & Ethics at the Museum.”
Rochelle has authored or co-edited several scholarly books, most recently Thoreau in an Age of Crisis: Essays on an American Icon. She is a scholar of American landscape aesthetics, and her writings on environmental literary history and environmental pedagogy appear in various journals and anthologies. Rochelle is also a creative writer. Her “Phantom Pains” essay won the Georgia Review Prose Prize in 2025. Other creative nonfiction appears in Baltimore Review, The Revalator, and the Thoreau Society Bulletin, where she published quarterly columns during her four years as president of the Thoreau Society. Summertime often finds her teaching for the Bread Loaf School of English.
The Idaho Humanities Council has presented its Outstanding Achievement in the Humanities Award since 1986. It is the council’s highest honor and recognizes a high achievement that fosters greater understanding or appreciation of the humanities."