Bruce Johnston’s Final Bow

By KIM BURGESS
Staff Writer

For 43 years, Bruce Johnston has been changing the lives of Saint Rose students. His Philosophy and Religious Studies classes are unforgettable experiences and his long-lasting impact on students has even materialized in the form of gifts.
One student gave Johnston a painting that still hangs proudly on his office wall, and another gave him a pocket watch. These experiences are coming to an end as Johnston prepares to retire. His last day on campus is Dec. 17 and afterward the school will be missing a vital piece of what makes its education so great.
When Johnston first started at Saint Rose, what he wanted was to teach his students to have “an enhanced sense of their abilities, a renewed love for the environment and for their fellow human beings, a joy for continual growth and learning.”
Johnston certainly lives how he teaches. His joy radiates from his entire being and the feeling is at once infectious and electric. By the time students leave his classes, they are in a different place from where they began and their outlook on life has completely changed for the better. Emily Cabrare, a current student in Johnston’s Ethics and Values class, said that she has learned from his teaching that “everything is a life lesson.”
Johnston discovered early on that he had a gift for teaching. Before he began at Saint Rose, he taught Sunday school at his father’s church where he learned what would eventually become his career path.
“I discovered that I had two passions: being a philosopher and communicating the rich heritage of philosophy.”
Johnston is passionate in every sense of the word when it comes to philosophy. He has a joy for imparting wisdom, which can be keenly felt in the emotion that shines through his voice. In a soft, enthusiastic tone he described that philosophy can change how people look at the world. Johnston said that philosophy liberates the mind from distraction and conformity and helps people learn to trust what their brain is telling them.
“You learn to connect the dots, think for yourself, integrate all that you know. The iPad connects to the blades of grass,” he said. “If the connection doesn’t look obvious, that just means I don’t have enough knowledge bits to fill in and when I do I start integrating things. It starts to make sense. I get better at reading my world, and if I’m lucky I fall in love with the world.”
Johnston had been the Chair of the Philosophy and Religious Studies department for nearly twenty years and his love for his department has not waned in the slightest.
“I never tire of telling people of how terribly important our department has been and is to this institution. A future of Saint Rose without the Philosophy and Religious Studies department would be a travesty, a complete moral ‘FAIL’ in every way imaginable,” Johnston said. “I am so proud of what we accomplish together. We are the signature Saint Rose experience.”
Part of Johnston’s enthusiasm for the department comes from his colleagues. As Chair, he was responsible for hiring every professor on staff and he created a department of what he called “stellar professionals” who all vary in teaching styles and viewpoints.
“He has exerted an unmistakable and lasting influence. He has hired everybody else in the department, and in doing so he insured that each person’s strengths and interest differ from the others,” said Professor Jeffrey Marlett, current Chair of the department. “Bruce shaped the Religious Studies and Philosophy department so that it would be known by intellectual diversity.”
The admiration from Johnston’s colleagues is clear. They have nothing but praise for him and are eager to share their stories of how important he is to them.
“He made us possible. I’m not sure there would be a Philosophy or Religious Studies department without Professor Johnston,” said Jeanne Wiley, associate professor of philosophy and religious studies. “He has been our fearless leader throughout the years.”
Even though Johnston stepped down as Chair, he is no less involved in the department or his classes. His teaching methods are what set him apart from many professors on campus because he teaches through the fine art of storytelling.
“Dr. Johnston is a wonderful storyteller and that gives students who take his courses something special,” Marlett said. “Over the years, largely through retirement, we at Saint Rose and the academy in general have lost a generation of scholars and teachers who appreciated and communicated their material through storytelling. It is thus a rare occasion when students get to hear a master like Bruce spin his craft.”
And spin he does. Wiley described hearing Johnston’s storytelling in action. She said Johnston was able to hypnotize a class on the arguably dull topic of symbolic logic. “I don’t think anyone in that class cared a wit about truth tables. But he was so turned on by his students that it was contagious. We wanted the life that was lighting him up to electrify us too. So we learned despite ourselves.”
Johnston describes teaching as a “performing art,” and like a true performer he uses his voice to inflect his subject’s importance. He sits on a table at the front of the classroom and his voice ranges from a soft spoken calm to a booming emotional outburst. The setting is informal but students are nonetheless enraptured because he teaches what he believes.
He asks his students to think, to connect the dots and see how what he is describing intertwines. As he talks he looks right at them, almost through them. He makes direct, piercing eye contact and it looks as if he knows what they are thinking.
Johnston admits he does not actually read minds. He does, however, read faces. In fact, faces are his favorite part of teaching.
“Part of the joy of performance is to read the emotional response of true learning on student’s faces. I can’t tell what they are thinking, but I can read the way we connect. I can tell how you’re feeling,” said Johnston. “There are 122 separate sets of muscles that control the human face, so that when I scan the faces when I’m teaching and I make eye contact constantly I can see it in your eyes. It’s a good feeling. All genuine deep learning is deeply emotional.”
Emotional is certainly one way to sum up a Bruce Johnston teaching experience. Johnston is an emotionally open person and he lays himself bare in every way. When he is feeling an emotion, others around him feel it too.
“More than once, I would enter a classroom to teach my next class as Bruce’s students were leaving. Both they and he were dabbing their eyes as they left because his storytelling induced all, including himself, to tears,” Marlett said.
This is part of what makes Johnston’s classes so special. Cabrare admits she likes how sensitive Johnston is when he tells stories and that is part of what makes his section of Ethics and Values her favorite class. If it were possible, she said she’d gladly take another class with him.
Cabrare is not alone in this feeling. Johnston has always had a knack for captivating students. For eighteen years he taught a class called “Junk Food Theology.” The class focused on finding religious themes in prominent movies of the time such as “E.T.,” “Star Wars” and “Jaws.” It was an incredibly popular spring course that only seniors could enroll in. He taught two sections with as many as 75 students per class and yet still more were left clamoring to get in.
“Junk Food Theology” was a staple of the Philosophy and Religious Studies department and was partially taught during a time Johnston describes as the best at Saint Rose.
“In the ‘90s, after a long struggle, faculty finally got paid a little better and had a real voice in shaping the college. We matured as professionals.”
Johnston describes a different Saint Rose; one where the faculty had more say in the programs, where they helped run the college as professional educators rather than accountants. The College was more of a caring community and it was possible for the administration and faculty to cordially mingle and even go to lunch together. It was essentially the complete opposite of what Saint Rose is like today.
Now is the worst time at Saint Rose, according to Johnston. “The fiscal crisis facing the college the past four years has stripped faculty of millions of dollars in pensions, systematically denied any say in the academic future of the College and is now facing an imminent dismissal of 25 percent of our colleagues.”
Johnston explained that Saint Rose is currently millions of dollars in debt and bank representatives serve on the board of trustees. He said banks, rather than professors, are in control of the decisions about classes and faculty cuts. Instead of Saint Rose’s education being focused on learning and having a diversity of classes it is instead down to the bottom line and this is where cuts will be made.
But this sad state of affairs is something Johnston can now leave behind. He has accomplished every goal he set for himself at Saint Rose, as well as some he never planned on. Now he can look forward to his retirement where his goals can start anew. He plans on traveling with his beloved wife, Suzanne, getting his novels and memoir published, and getting his music produced.
Johnston has managed to touch the lives of countless people during his tenure at Saint Rose. On Wednesday, Nov. 4, his retirement was acknowledged by the faculty of the School of Arts and Humanities.
His department colleagues honored him with kind words and, in true performance style, a standing ovation.
As Johnston takes his final bow, he leaves behind a hole in the school that is not likely to be filled. He is a rare gem in this world and the people of Saint Rose have been blessed to know him.
As Wiley said, “He’s the old Navajo prayer brought to life: ‘He walks in beauty. Beauty is before him, behind him, above him, all around him. It is finished in beauty.’”