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Johnston has integrated as fully as possible the living quarters of the students with the faculty offices and classrooms. The ten or so most Johnstonized University faculty have offices in one of the two dorms, and one of the dorms has classrooms and a meditation room, both of which are used for Johnston classes.
Socially, there is a lot of mixing of the age groups, compared to the divisions I see at Hampshire. This is no doubt in part due to the Freshman being spread out in the Johnston Center dormitories, and the forced communication whenever students come to the Community Metings.
A student-run coffee house in the basement of one of the dorms is open Sunday through Thursday and serves as a meeting place for Johnstonians and some adventurous University students. The workers for the coffee house are paid for by the University and by the proceeds of the sales.
A visitor staying on the Johston Complex notices very clearly the open drug and alcohol use by many of the students. I stress open here because the same degree of alcohol and drug use is present in most Universities in the country. Yet at Johnston, the Community determines how to deal with the issues, and must do so while still conforming to the University's official policies.
For many students, community, governance, and Johnston are all fundamentally connected, indeed almost inseparable. The institution itself is definitely grounded on the idea that a good education cannot be purely academic. Johnston Director Yasuyuki Owada tries hard to get students who are academically Johnston to come to Community Meetings even if they choose not to live on Complex, simply because of the education that takes place in the process of working through real issues. Certainly, for all Johnstonians and friends, the Community Meetings are very educational, dealing with serious issues such as drug policies, sexual harassment, confidentiality, and choosing leadership. Yet, another view of the academically-Johnston folks who are not interested in Community encourages them to participate in whatever activities are most important to their own educations:
Every JC graduation I've watched has always included some people I've never seen on campus or in the dorms; but I was always touched by the way that they talked about Johnston's nontraditional structure having allowed them to pursue and complete an education otherwise unavailable to them. It's difficult to include these people in the day-to-day definition of ``the community'' but I think it's a mistake to forget them entirely.[9]
Yet just as some academically Johnston students are not involed in the Complex and the community, many students living on Complex are not a part of the decisionmaking community. Out of approximately 90 students on Complex, about 60 are academically Johnston. [SEE FOOTNOTE] Some University students choose to move to Johnston simply because Student Life does allow it more room to make some of its own policies, especially drug and alcohol policies.
In an interview, the Johnston Director told me that he now believes that probably the strongest aspect of Johnston is its configurative education. This kind of education again corresponds to an idea of Meade's , specifically the kind of education that happens when students learn from each other. ``What you learn from these hassles is vitally important. I fundamentally trust that these students will be able to resolve their conflicts, that is why I do not talk when I go to Community Meetings. They will muddle through, but what they gain from that they will be able to use their whole lives.''[20]
One significant difference in the makeup of the Community is certainly apparent from the early days of the College. That difference is in the role of faculty. Faculty rarely now attend the Community Meeting, and, when they do, they rarely speak. This removal of the faculty from the Meeting has come along with a social removal of the faculty from the Meeting, and with the aging of the Faculty. As Director Owada says, the student's day goes from 10 or 12 am until 3 am, whereas his professor's day goes from 8am until 5 or 6 o'clock, which leaves only about half a day of possible interaction. Indeed, whereas Wednesdays were reserved in the ``Johnston College Days'' for meetings, including contract meetings, community meetings, personnel meetings, budget meetings, and faculty meetings, Community Meetings now often happen at night, when faculty have returned home, and contract meetings are far more difficult to schedule, with every community member having commitments to the University.