A View From the Trenches

Abstract

This is an informal and personalized account of the joys and hassles en countered by the Dean of Student Life of Johnston College, an experiment ing college within the University of Redlands. The college had no required courses and no grades; courses were small and personalized. For seven years (1970-1977), the author's goal was to synthesize the Dean of Student Life's functions of administrator-counselor-instructor into a positive, creative force on campus. Living-learning and holistic education were the two catchwords of the college. Topics include: Dorms: Living-Learning or Leaving-Learning, Student Living Autonomy, The Students, Initial Evaluations from Above, The Bizarre and Sublime, Hard Cases, and Changes and Endings.