Longtime Clevelander and dedicated community member John R. Corlett was appointed a Mandel School Distinguished Visiting Community Scholar for a two-year term beginning Jan. 1, 2024.
With his new appointment, Corlett will guest-lecture courses, offer student-focused events and workshops related to his areas of expertise, and work with small groups and individual students with relevant career interests, particularly about the policy-making process.
All of Corlett's career has been spent in Ohio—he has worked in Athens, Akron, Columbus and Cleveland—and his family has lived in Greater Cleveland for at least five or six generations. He came back to Cleveland a few years after graduating from Ohio University to do fundraising and community relations for a community mental health center in the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood. He then worked for the Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland, the Center for Families and Children and the Center for Community Solutions. He has always been involved in advocacy and policy work. In 2007 he took a big leap when he was asked to join the administration of Governor Ted Strickland as the Ohio Medicaid Director. He held the program together during the Great Recession and is proud that they never had to limit Medicaid eligibility, even with a crashing state tax base. Corlett returned to Cleveland to join MetroHealth, and then went back home to the Center for Community Solutions. At age 60, he married his husband and they moved from Cleveland to Lakewood. They love how walkable Lakewood is and all of the great restaurants and close access to the MetroParks.