‘A very special kind of caring’

Dean Johnson was known for her irreverent wit and common-sense advice. Some examples:

“Don’t let studying get in the way of your education.”
— Advice to a student

“We accepted you thinking of yourself as a late bloomer. You’re not blooming.”
— Advice to a student

“I hope that you as students will all have the courage to be kind to your dormitory neighbors, particularly at 3 a.m. when they ask you to turn off the stereo and send your noisy friends home.”
— Convocation 1980, after a discussion of Paul Tillich’s weighty tome, “Courage To Be”

“Only the village idiot could take a light view of the state of the world today.”
— Westerly high school commencement, 1962

“According to the basic tenets of [my Swedish Baptist] church, the Bible constituted a literal transcript dictated by God to the unknown secretarial staff which put together the King James edition.”
— Chapel talk, December 1978

“But I always walk to my car.”
— Response to suggestion that faculty could save gas by walking more

On Sir Francis Bacon: “that genius who decided that the English language was a mere passing fad and therefore wrote all of his important works in Latin.”
— Evening vespers, Nov. 7, 1982

“Garry Trudeau said all college students need to be thoroughly sedated. I would not wish to go as far as that, even though it would make the job of the deans easier.”
— Vespers, year unknown

“Everybody is in a good mood. Even the faculty are smiling.”
— Opening assembly, Aug. 30, 1978

“There is perhaps a very good reason why carping criticism and loyalty go hand in hand. It constitutes a very special kind of caring.”
— Opening assembly, date unknown

“The most recent and still pending Senior Car Petition has once again been run off the road…”
— Opening line of a memo, circa 1965, on the eroding residential character of Connecticut College