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The transision from the magical atmosphere of Pilgrim Pines was on the one hand difficult. Back at the University, the dorm windows couldn't open[SEE FOOTNOTE]...the University housing policies became a concrete reality rather than an abstraction, and a threatening evil rather than a harmless one. Though much of the enthusiasm for building a new college held over from Pilgrim Pines, that energy was often diverted into hostility towards the University rather than towards construction of Johnston.
The University ultimately reserved decisionmaking power on issues of finance and student life, a far cry from the community-designed, egalitarian living-learning community McCoy had envisioned for his students and they had invisioned for themselves. Not surprising, the issue was a source of enormous frustration for the students, and was (and still is) probably the greatest single cause of tension between Johnston students and the University. University rules outlawed coed living, and made special visiting hours between dorms. Apparently most severe were the special hours for women's dormitories, limiting the number of nights they could be out of the dorm and setting a curfew of 10 pm for the nights when they were to stay in their dorm rooms.
To the degree that it was possible, Johnston chose to deal with its discipline problems in special T-groups. Of course, this strategy was incompatible with official University policy, and its realization was dependent on deception between the T-groups and the University's Student Life office. The Johnston administrators all had to live a double life, on the one hand giving the impression to the University that they were carrying out the University regulations and on the other hand ``mitigating the effects of those rules as much as they could.'' One of the curricular decisions at Pilgrim Pines had been the formation of ``Quest For Meaning'' Seminars. These QFMs were to be the personal/interpersonal followups to the Pilgrim Pines T-groups (in many cases they directly grew out of T-groups), as well as a partial forum for the College's distribution requirements. The QFM's subject matter, methodologies, and results varied a lot. Some succeeded brilliantly, others were apparently unsuccessful. Some had shared reading lists; in others the students pursued very different work.
At Johnston the faculty spent long hours in the fall of '69 planning and determining academic policy. Students felt this undercut the Community Meetings, however, and ``enough faculty agreed that it was decided, in March, 1970, to rename the faculty meetings the ``Faculty Forum''.[SEE FOOTNOTE] Such fora might discuss issues but would not take votes or make decisions...In addition, a small set of ad hoc student-faculty committees, creatures of the Community Meeting, was emerging. By the end of the first year these committees were doing much of the planning work, reporting back to the Community Meeting for final approval. In the first year, a graduation plan was proposed by faculty and approved by the Community Meeting. The contract was to integrate a students' entire college career in one document. Students were to form an individual graduation committee, made up of an advisor as well as two other faculty, preferably from other academic areas. The student's negotiated contract was to address 11 different areas, ranging from a statement of professional objectives to state requirements, to an indication of the mastery of several methodologies, and substantive evidence of awareness of contemporary problems. ``While the individualized committee was replaced by a standing Graduation Contract Committee in 1970, the design remained fundamentally the same throughout the life of the college.''
The problem of unprofessional evaluations also arose in the first year. Faculty and students had apparently not agreed upon the meaning and format of evalutions, and the variety of interpretations strayed far from what many in the University and even the Johnston Community would accept. Some evaluations seemed to be personal letters of appreciation, whereas others were evaluations of exactly what a student did, and still others were evaluations of how a students's classwork fit into a particular students' needs. Eventually, the University Academic Dean complained about the Johnston evaluations. There was a faculty meeting with that Dean, and all the substandard evaluations were rewritten.
The second year of the College brought with it many surprises and tales.
Armacost retired and was replaced in the fall of 1970 by Eugene Dawson, an old friend and previous colleague of McCoy's at the Danforth foundation. Dawson was in fact McCoy's choice as a replacement for Armacost, though McCoy ``engineered the nomination through a third party so that Armacost would not know that Dawson was McCoy's candidate.''
The hiring, however, proved Dawson to be as much a Trojan Horse to McCoy as he himself had been to Armacost. Dawson was not as patient with the college as Armacost had been. McCoy felt was sure had a three-year experimental grace-period from Armacost. Dawson apparently felt no similar obligation. He desperately wanted a more unified campus, under one President and one Board of Trustees, with one provost for each college.
Not surprisingly, many of the same issues of conflict with the University continued into Johnston's second year.[SEE FOOTNOTE] Indeed, the 1971 Chancellor's Report reports on the faculty opinion:
The faculty of Johnston College unanimously passed a resolution stating that they are teaching under protest of the unfortunate split in the application of the living-learning philosophy ar Johnston College...Lack of autonomy in the living area constitutes the most serious threat to our future.[3]
In addition, however, was added the issue of a division within Johnston itself, especially between veteran Johnstonians and new faculty and students. According to the History,
Back in Redlands these [ownership] differences blossomed into political tensions. The integration of new students and faculty proved impossible to do quickly. No matter how hard they tried to overcome it, the founding members felt a deep proprietary urge; against all reason they wanted to exclude the newcomers from their college [emphasis in original]. A student said that the powerful figures of the original class...seemed like ``gods'' to her when she first arrived. ``And sometimes they acted like it,'' she added...The ``trust level just wasn't the same,'' remarked...student Peter Michelsen, ``People started locking their doors all the time.''
Two of the biggest issues on the Student Life front that year were animal policies and off-campus housing. On the one hand, the University forbade cats and dogs in the dormitories; yet, Johnston students ``imported both in large numbers''. Many students, fully dissatisfied with the student life policies of the administration and becoming aware of the high costs they were paying for housing, began to devise strategies for getting permission to live off-campus. A priority system was developed to allow some upperclassmen to live off-campus, but there were always ``more people aspiring to escape the dorms than there were off-campus slots, and the dorms were never quite full enough to satisfy the University.''
In January of 1971, the University trustees and Dawson terminated McCoy's contract and hired Gene Ouellette, the chair of the University Communicative Disorders and Drama departments, as Johnston's new Chancellor. The Board of Overseers of Johnston proposed a dual Chancellorship, with McCoy as academic Chancellor and Ouellette as administrative Chancellor. This plan was also passed consensually by the Johnston community. It was rejected by the trustees of the University in short order at their next meeting.
The Johnston Community held a full meeting on the 22nd of January, 1971. Pres[SEE FOOTNOTE] McCoy announced his dissatisfaction with the broken word of the University trustees and his ongoing support for Johnston. His speech strongly criticized the University's action as violating a basic principle of Johnston -- ``that personal growth is the most important.'' It criticized ``centralization'' as the most volatile result of the decision. He rallied his community members to desert the University, receiving a standing ovation:
Johnston exists where the people are. If the majority of Johnston faculty and students (supported by their parents in writing) wish to relocate, I stand ready to serve you. You can individualize education. Don't deceive yourselves about centralization. The erosion may be slow but don't doubt it...Centralization eliminates the conviction of individual worth on which we are based.
The most likely sight for a move turned out to be Lone Mountain College in San Fransisco. A Catholic college run by sisters, Johnston would have been guaranteed its own dormitories and the living-learning autonomy it was denied at Redlands. Two overseers, eight faculty, and more than half the student body voiced their clear support for the move. On February 8, however, Dwayne Orton, chairman of the Johnston Board of Overseers and the man responsible for McCoy's hiring in the first place, affirmed that Johnston ``could survive and even flourish on the Redlands campus,'' ending by announcing that he was remaining on the Board of Overseers.
Orton's decision is not surprising, and reveals Orton's reason for supporting Johnston in the first place: as a University of Reldands alumnus, he was concerned that the University was becoming too entrenched in old ways and would prove its own undoing without some new lifeblood. An innovative college was just the help he thought would help Redlands most.[1][SEE FOOTNOTE]
On February 26 the Johnston students voted 2 to 1 for a merger with Lone Mountain. However, gradually the Lone Mountain group fell apart. Many dissenters feared the financial risks that necessarily came with the move. Additionally, misunderstandings between McCoy and faculty about possible appointments in the new Johnston administration frustrated and demoralized those Johnston faculty who supported the move. In March, only 74 students were still pledged to move, compared to 215 that were either committed to Redlands or undecided.
The History estimates that twenty-eight students withdrew as a direct result of the firing. Ouellette, having taken over McCoy's position, seemed to be working hard and effectively towards membership and respect in the Johnston community, accepting all faculty including the Lone Mountain group.
Probably in part to placate the Johnston Community, by the spring of 1971, the University Board of Trustees passed a new housing code. ``Women's hours were all but abandoned and a type of coed dormitory was approved''. That type of coed housing approved of men and women living in the same dormitories, as long as they were on different halls.
The accrediting team visiting Johnston in 1972 was absolutely impressed by the College:
As for our expectation that the College would not live up to the high reputation established by oral and published reports about it, we should like to summarize our finding here on that score: the College does indeed live up to that high reputation in every important [emphasis in original] sense; we found, moreover, that the published stories had actually missed the most indefinable of all the unusual qualities of this campus -- the sense of community -- for at Johnston, we discovered, there is an unusually strong and vital sense of community such as we have seen on few other campuses in the United States.
In fact, the committee found itself attempting to do its best to encourage the University to change its attitude towards the College:
Johnston is now ready for greater autonomy in the student-life area, and it must have greater autonomy in this area in order to make progress in implementing the living-learning framework...The physical facilities are not really right for the realization of this living-learning concept...the Johnston community is coping well with this problem -- as well, we suppose, as can be expected, given the inadequecy of the buildings for real living-learning.[2] [emphasis added]