JoAn (Knight) Herren (BA/’68/MA ’74) has been a devoted employee of the Head Start Program since she first directed the Cedar Rapids HACAP Head Start program from 1970 to 1974.

Today, Herren continues to be proud and happy with her work as the chief of the Training and Technical Assistance Branch of the Offices of Head Start in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“I love this job because it provides an opportunity to learn and grow each and every day,” she said. “Head Start is my passion.”

The Head Start program, with some 2,500 local offices, serves children from low-income families in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Marshall Islands, and more than 150 Indian reservations and migrant camps in the U.S. A keystone of the program is a comprehensive early childhood program that focuses on young children’s general well-being.
“Head Start takes the whole child into account,” Herren said. “When the child has an abscessed tooth, the program addresses it. When the family has no place to live or no food in the cupboard, the program steps forward and addresses it.”

Herren’s main roles in that process include overseeing a national network of training and technical assistance providers, managing a Head Start Fellows leadership development project, and collaborating on the design and development of the Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center, which she describes as a “dynamic and interactive electronic repository for early childhood materials and information.”

Herren, who was the eldest of six children born and raised in Anamosa, Iowa, has long had an interest in caring for young people. She ran Little Herky’s Day Care in Iowa City while her husband attended The University of Iowa. While working on her master’s degree, Herren worked in the UI’s Preschool Laboratory.

After her four-year stint working for the Head Start program in Cedar Rapids, she next moved to Ames to serve as the Head Start training officer for the state of Iowa. Following that assignment was heading the Head Start Regional Resources and Training Center at the University of Maryland, before moving into her current work at the federal level.

Herren said this is an exciting time to be part of the Head Start program.
“The field of early childhood education is burgeoning with new information,” she said. “We are blessed to be living in an electronic age where the lessons learned in New Zealand can inform our own work.”

Carol Pearson, director of the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership and a professor of Leadership Studies in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, has known Herren for some 20 years. She said she has long been impressed with Herren’s leadership at Head Start.

“JoAn was clearly a thoughtful leader in terms of bringing along a staff and helping them to perform at a high level,” Pearson said. “I could just see what an incredible impact she was having on people.”
Herren said the people who make up the Head Start staff across the nation make her job a joy.

“In working with Head Start, we know a great deal about poverty and the distress of families in this country, but we also know that there is a dedicated band of warriors out there who, each and every day, go to work to ameliorate that distress,” she said.

“They don’t make huge salaries, they may work evenings and weekends, but at the end of each day, when others are feeling disillusioned and despairing, I know that there is hope. I know the people who are doing the heavy lifting to make this world a better place. And I know they are not alone—their partners are doing the same thing each and every day.”