The Johnston Center for Integrative Studies

  A Moment With The Director:Bill McDonald Profile                            

              There is an air of focus that follows Bill McDonald up the steps of the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee in the Java café looms into the lobby and escapes as he opens the front door. He walks through the scene of Johnston students, some diligent and others slacking. They lift their eyes from the pages of their thesis papers and crossword puzzles to greet the light-hearted director. Amongst them, there is a collective sense of respect for the man, though once he is gone they resume their studious efforts or idle banter.

            Bill's office is cool, dark and serene. In an environment of perpetual commotion and intellectual discussion, it is an oasis of calm. His walls are decorated with images of Greek pillars and student art work. There is no waiting room, instead you feel as if you have stumbled into his personal study. After decades of dedication to Johnston, this is in many ways his home.

            Before he arrived at this institution, Bill grew up as a California native. His parents, were the only registered democrats on their block. When it came time for college, he spent most of his education at Colgate and then Claremont. With an undergraduate degree in philosophy and religion, Bill was not one to float around.

            "I would have been a terrible Johnston student, I was introverted and quiet. I was also academically conservative, I just wanted to get my A's and move on," he states, "though had I been one, my emphasis would have likely been in religion and the arts along with interdisciplinary literature."

            What did make Bill's overall education similar to Johnston student's, was his cross cultural experience.  Over the years he has traveled not only to Yugoslavia, but to Greece,  England, and Germany. Greece in particular, spoke out to Bill. It's friendly inhabitants, grub, and low cost of living kept him coming back for more.

             With some scholarly recognition, Bill began teaching at Illinois Wesleyan University. There, he impressed the Dean of Students, who later recommended him to Johnston's chancellor Pres McCoy. It was Pres who sold him and so many others on the idea of Johnston College. In those days,  the idea of a living, learning community was progressive, if not implausible. This did not stop Bill from joining a staff that consisted of the "Gooies", clinical and transpersonal psychology professors, and the egg-headed "Pricklie" professors, who specialized in philosophy and religion. In the first years, he experienced first hand the great deal of tension at the University with the development of this new institution.

            In his own words he reflects, "It was the old Baptist college versus the hippies."

              After attempting to break from the U of R in 1971 and being dissolved in 1979, Johnston has been through a lot. In the face of the current recession, Bill refers back to the Reagan Era, when enrollment was at an all time low and funding was even harder to come by. As the director, this man has experience on his side. However, he has not been disillusioned and seems to believe that the Johnston Center has matured and changed for the better.

            "Johnston today is the kind of school we know how to run," he states with confidence, "community life today is heather than ever. Preserving that is going to be a challenge. But there is never actually a community, only the intention to make a community."

Portrait Credit: Doug Bowman