The Johnston Center for Integrative Studies

In 1969, a group of faculty, students, and staff created an alternative learning environment at the University—a true living and learning community where students would be responsible for their own education. Though Johnston was once a college of its own, it is now fully integrated into the College of Arts and Sciences and is in fact one of the colleges largest academic programs.

Johnston education presumes that students are inquisitive individual learners, not passive consumers of education. Our educational process recognizes that students have a great variety of needs and interests and seeks to give them extensive "ownership" of their education. Johnston begins with the idea that each student must accept major responsibility for his or her own education. Johnston brings together a community of bright, creative, independent, and active students with a genuine interest in academic pursuits-a place where diversity is cherished and debated.

The Johnston program has a more comprehensive, integrated, degree program than the rest of Arts and Sciences. All Johnston Students design specific degree requirements by negotiating a contract with a  student-faculty committee (Graduation Contract Committee). This principle of negotiation underlies the Johnston program, for it insists that students take responsibility for their education and that they learn to negotiate adequate forms of attaining those goals. Guiding principles govern every contract, but the nature of each academic plan is specific to the individual student. All students address the spirit of general education goals, including intercultural experience. Beyond these requirements, students are encouraged to define for themselves, the nature of their education. As a result, all choices rest with the student.

       Today some 200 talented and passionate Redlands students live and learn together in the Johnston complex, which includes two residence halls, faculty offices, a coffee house, classrooms, and community spaces. In consultation with faculty, students design contracts for their courses, personally modifying the already established course syllabus. The work of a Johnston student is assessed through the use of written evaluations in lieu of traditional numeric grades. This process requires both the student and the faculty member to mutually define the objectives of the course in the beginning of the semester and then to evaluate the student’s work at the end