John B. Stephenson (September 26, 1937 – December 6, 1994) was a sociologist and scholar of Appalachia, a founder of the Appalachian Studies Conference, and president of Berea College from 1984 to 1994.
He began his teaching career at Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, North Carolina, from 1961 to 1964, where he met and married a colleague, Jane Ellen Baucom, in 1962.
Connecting with the emerging field of Appalachian studies, he co-edited Appalachia in the Sixties (1972) with sociology graduate student David Walls.
John Stephenson established ties with a diverse group of notable people whom he brought to speak at Berea College, from Roots author Alex Haley, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, to the Dalai Lama.
He served on boards of the Kentucky Literacy Foundation, the national Elderhostel program, the Frontier Nursing Service, and the Appalachian Regional Hospitals.