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In the San Bernadino Valley of Southern California, a curious visitor can be very intrigued by the Johnston Center for Individualized Education, an educational experiment just past its 25th birthday. Initially founded in 1969 as Johnston College, and integrated into the University of Redlands in 1979, Johnston now exists as an internal degree-granting Center within the University.
In its days as a College, Johnston had its own administration, admissions office, and Board of Overseers. The number of faculty ranged from 15 to 30, serving 50 to 300 students. With the transition to a Center, half the Johnston College faculty were purged; the other half were integrated into the University. Now Johnston has about 130 students in a University of just over 1500.
The Center continues the mission of the College, working towards a personal and community ownership of education and living conditions through an individualized graduation contract, written class contracts and evaluations, and the living-learning partnership of the Johnston Complex and Center.
Johnston College has split into the academic Johnston Center and the residential Johnston Complex. Some University students are housed in the Complex, and some Johnstonians now live in the University. Just over half of the Johnston Center students are Johnston Complex residents, and most Johnston Complex residents are Johnston students. Many Johnston students who do not officially live on Complex nonetheless engage in Community Meetings and activites. Many original Johnston faculty are still teaching at the University. Those remaining original faculty, together with new faculty hired by the University, offer Johnston-specific courses as well as more traditional courses within the University's departmental offerings
Today, the Johnston Complex is located in two dormitories -- not the original two -- on the University Campus. Students on Complex all eat at least five meals a week with the University students in the new Mariott-run dining commons. Some mixing of Johnston students with Redlands students certainly takes place in the commons, as well as in University classes, but Johnston students, cliquish as their fellow students across the country, are not especially integrated into the University.
Johnston remains a special place, a place whose primary purpose is to ``take the educational cliche that `students are individuals' seriously.''[11] [emphasis in original] As long as outgoing, risk-taking, intelligent students and faculty continue to come to the Johnston Center, it will likely remain one of the best institutions where students can pursue a humanistic education in the country.
The Executive Summary outlines the contents of the chapters and my conculsions.