CC community remembers Alice Johnson

[Dean Johnson] was Dean of Freshman my freshman year, 1968-69. First semester I partied a little too much and didn’t do too well scholastically as a result. I was called into DJ’s office and she gave me quite a lecture on the benefits of a college education and the cost to my parents of my education and how I was letting them down as well as myself by performing so poorly. She took control of my course registration and got me a tutor and saw that I turned it all around. I will be forever grateful for her personal intervention. In later years she had attended all the Class of ’72 reunions and we all enjoyed sitting around listening to her stories of days gone by. She will be greatly missed.

Amy Lewis Tabor ’72

• • •

I’d been studying and working in Hong Kong for about five years following graduation, and one early morning the phone rang at 5:30. I stumbled out to the living room of the flat, only to discover that it was Dean Johnson calling from campus. She yelled into the phone as if to bridge the hemispheres, “It’s time to come home. There’s a job waiting for you.” Apparently Sidwell Friends in Washington, D.C., had wanted to discuss the possibility of my teaching Chinese at the school and had contacted the college to find out where I was. Nothing ever came of the conversations I had with the administrators once I’d arrived in D.C.; despite my Quaker upbringing, it was not the right place for me to be. Still, if it hadn’t been for Dean Johnson, I might not have eventually landed in the Vermont countryside, where I couldn’t be more content.

Dana R. Pierson ’78

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I was a French major and spent my junior year in Paris. The first couple of months were difficult for me. I was miserably homesick. My boyfriend was far away at Yale. And classes started much later in Europe than in the U.S. I decided to write to Dean Johnson and tell her that I thought that she should know that I had been there for weeks and that we had not yet had a single class. I suggested that perhaps I should return to Conn, where I could get a good education. Dean Johnson could see right through this ruse! She wrote back to me and encouraged me to stick it out. She said, “There is more to education than classes. Take advantage of every minute that you are in Paris!” How wise she was! I stayed. I loved it. And it changed my life forever. Merci beaucoup, Dean Johnson.

Cheri Kohler Saltzman ’73

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As a member of the class of 1963, Dean Johnson was my Dean — [she] watched over my academic progress. When I arrived on my first Christmas vacation home in 1959, my father greeted me with the news that he thought it would be a good thing if I spent my vacation studying French. This was rather a strange welcome home from my beloved father. When I asked why and where this was coming from, he informed me that he had had a very nice telephone conversation with Dean Johnson and they both agreed that in view of my current grade in French, a dedicated study program during vacation would be a very good idea!

When I returned to Connecticut College in the summer of 1979 — my first trip back, I was accompanied by my husband (Dave Alberts, Trinity College ’62) and our 13-year-old son, Tim, and 11-year-old daughter, Sabrina. We were showing our children where Dave and I first met — in Fanning Hall. Out of Fanning Hall came Dean Johnson. She came right up to me and said “Hi, Heather Axelrod, how have you been!!!”

Alice Johnson was really a remarkable woman. She was dedicated to all of her students, making sure that they would be successful. I will always remember this remarkable woman and be grateful that she made such a tremendous difference in all of our lives.

Heather Alberts ’63

• • •

Alice Johnson was one of the most wonderful people I have ever known. We became friends when I arrived at the College in 1966 as a very junior instructor. Alice subsequently was the self-appointed, incredibly generous, and deeply appreciated godmother to my two daughters. She gave the best Election Night, Super Bowl, and New Year’s Eve parties one could hope to attend.

I am certain that Alice was among the most honest, unpretentious, witty people ever to occupy an office in a college administration anywhere! While Connecticut College students affectionately nicknamed her “DJ,” Alice — in typical, irreverent fashion — sometimes referred to herself as “that four-letter word” (i.e., d-e-a-n). My guess would be that Connecticut College faculty used a more familiar “four-letter word” less frequently in their descriptions of that particular d-e-a-n than of any other, because Alice always felt (and comported herself) like one of “us,” rather than one of “them.”

When I e-mailed my sister-in-law, a member of the Class of ’73, to tell her of Alice’s death, her response was, “She was an exceptional person!” Alice truly was. I shall never forget her, and I shall always miss her.

Sara Lee Silberman
Associate Professor of History
(Retired June 2005)

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During my senior year at Conn, 1976-77, I applied to graduate journalism programs. When I got my GRE results, which were extremely low (I always did poorly on standardized tests), I asked DJ to write letters explaining my scores. DJ wrote that my grades and her interactions with me indicated that I was too bright for the exam and thought up answers that were not offered among the choices! I got into many good programs and always felt deeply indebted to DJ for her creativity and concern.

Mimi Ginott Kaough ’77

• • •

May she rest in peace. She was a wonderful lady, and an inspiration to us all.

Ellen Feldman Thorp ’74

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The line I remember most from Dean Johnson is her saying to me (after my first-semester grades of three C’s and one F), “We accepted you thinking of you as a late bloomer; you’re not blooming.” This was in her office, where she had offered me a cigarette (we all smoked, then, it seemed, in classes, offices, lectures, throughout classes and everywhere else). I had at first refused the offer, but Dean Johnson said, “Oh, go ahead. I know you smoke.”

Many years later, I was filling in for the editor of Newsweek’s “My Turn” column when a submission from Dean Johnson came in. It was excellent — about neglected children and how they can triumph in spite of their early disappointments — and I was thrilled to be able to call her to tell her we were going to run it.

My last memory is of going to a meeting of the Connecticut College Club of New York City. I went because Alice Johnson and Gertrude Noyes were going to be there — the heroines of my crazy years at Conn, during which they seemed to believe I could actually graduate despite my frequently checkered academic standing.

I had thought of these two women as towering figures, but I’d only known them sitting behind desks. It was a shock to see that each was rather diminutive. I was lurking in the back of the room, but both came over to me to say hello. Dean Johnson gave me a huge hug. When I expressed surprise that they remembered me at all (I think it was about 15 years since I’d graduated), they said that it was students like me (they didn’t quite say “the problem students”) that stuck in their memories.   

Dean Johnson’s “late bloomer” opener was simply a statement of fact, not a comment on my character. When I ended up on dean’s list in later years, she seemed unsurprised.

Margaret Moorman ’70

• • •

For Alice ...

You meet two or three people in life whose spirit seems to rise effortlessly from a deep well of goodness and compassion. Alice was such a person. Tough, funny, brilliant, and warm, Alice was the most honorable individual that I have ever met. She had legions of truly good friends. Somehow, I never really thought she could die.

Alice’s great gift was her ability to make people see the possibilities in themselves. When I was a 19-year-old sophomore at Connecticut College, she began my education in looking at the world — and myself — in new ways. More than any other person, Alice was my “great teacher” in life. I will always be her student and friend.

There are a million “Alice” stories and, at their essence, they are all the same. She helped someone get over an unusual problem; she made a funny remark and people laughed because the remark was somehow true — at least in an ironic sense; she took a road trip to Maine and accidentally met the governor of the state, who, in turn, gave her lobster traps as a gift. She was that sort of person — only more so. She had a real talent for being alive. I don’t know why there are so few Alice Johnsons in the world. We need more people like Alice — we always do.

She was a stunning individual. Her life was big. I loved her.

Don Gallinger ’79

• • •

I was one of the first four male graduates at Conn. I met Dr. Johnson when I first applied; she directed me to the financial aid that I so desperately needed. I took her course on African American literature and had dinner and seminars at the little cottage on campus. We once traveled to Hartford to do a TV program on co-education.

Dr. Johnson was delightful, caring, and a supreme advocate for students of color. It was Dr. Johnson who directed me to President Shain who wrote a recommendation for me to attend Princeton.

Her classes were never boring and she brought literature to life; she exemplified the rich tradition of Connecticut College.

John Walters ’71

• • •

She was one of the most memorable professors I was ever privileged to study with....She will be dearly missed.

Judy Licht Della Femina ’66

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My favorite example of Alice’s sense of humor and her ability to keep things in perspective: Sometime in the mid or late seventies, I think, the student newspaper did an article on environmental problems which was occasionally over the top in the righteousness department and was particularly critical of faculty who drove their cars from their office building to Cro at lunch time (something that Alice did with regularity). The following week’s newspaper contained Alice’s one-line letter to the editor that said, “But I always walk to my car.” As usual, she said a lot with a little and right on the money. Thank you, Alice.

Art Ferrari
Professor of Sociology

• • •

The Class of 1964 held a freshman talent show in the snack bar in Crozier Williams, and invited Dean Johnson, then the Freshman Dean, to participate. Much to our delight she accepted, and warbled a truly terrible rendition of Jesus Wants Me for a SUNBEAM. She was hilarious, and the hit of the show.

Her office that year was outfitted with a red box with a buzzer, labeled PANIC BUTTON. I’m sure I was not the only person to use it, but I may have been one of the most frequent visitors to that office, and appreciated her attempts to put me at ease and to encourage some sense of humor in the face of daunting adjustments to college.

Platt Arnold ’64
(We called her Dean Johnson in those days … the DJ was later classes).

• • •

She always took an interest in the students’ lives and truly cared. I know the heavens are shining a little brighter because she is now among the stars.

Brian L. Crawford ’85