The Old-School President of St. John’s College
Embraces Technology … Slowly
CHRIS TOPHER B. NELSON can hardly be blamed for his slow courtship with technology. He is president of St. John’s College, a tradition-bound
institution that embraces a classical curriculum
that would make Socrates proud. Indeed, some
administrators on the Annapolis, Md., campus
were skeptical when Mr. Nelson took a shine
to e-mail and the use of digital documents less
than a decade ago.
“They used to joke that the school would
somehow change when the president finally
caved in,” Mr. Nelson says.
Mr. Nelson, 65, stands at the helm of one of
St. John’s two campuses, the other of which is
located in Santa
Fe, N.M. St.
John’s describes
itself as a “great
books” college
and follows a re-
quired curricu-
lum that traces
the “seminal
works of West-
ern civilization”
in chronologi-
cal order. As a
PC or Mac?
Mostly PC, but he’s loving the iPad
Favorite spots on the Web:
An amateur art collector, he visits
galleries online.
Skill he wishes he had:
Greater facility with word processing. He
composes most documents in e-mail.
1970 graduate of St. John’s, Mr. Nelson is also
a product of its old-school ethos. He went on to
earn a law degree and practiced law for 18 years
in Chicago before returning to his alma mater
as president.
While technology has not passed Mr. Nelson
by, he is hardly a techie. On his birthday several
years ago, his wife gave him an Amazon Kindle
e-reader. He has yet to even charge the battery.
“I love the texture of the page,” he says.
Given the tomes that Mr. Nelson has a habit
of carrying around, a Kindle might make sense.
On a recent vacation, he tried to check a bag
at the airport with a 10-pound copy of War
and Peace shoved inside. He was able to make it
under the 50-pound limit only by removing the
book.
While he does not use a digital tablet for
reading, Mr. Nelson is slowly incorporating an
iPad into his work routine. Long in the habit of
printing out reams of documents for meetings,
he can now find most of what he needs on the
tablet.
Typing remains a challenge, though. During
Mr. Nelson’s grade-school days, boys were sent
to shop class while girls learned the then-secre-
tarial art of typing. He gets by with a fast hunt
and peck.
Of all the technological advances that have
changed his job, Mr. Nelson says e-mail has
been the most transformational. “The tele-
phone rings about 90 percent less than it did,”
he says. “The e-mail has gone from zero to 85
percent of the communications I get.”
While he carries a BlackBerry, Mr. Nelson
uses it only for e-mail and prefers not to make
calls from a cellphone. “I don’t remember my
number,” he says. —JACK S TRIPLING
SUSANA RAAB FOR THE CHRONICLE
St. John’s College president Christopher B. Nelson
(center) leads a seminar on “War and Peace.”
In Spokane, the Chancellor Is Wedded to Her BlackBerry
Christine
Johnson (left),
chancellor of
the Community
Colleges of
Spokane, checks
e-mail on her
BlackBerry as a
student stands by.
WHEN I T COMES to the latest cyber- developments, the chancellor of the Community Colleges of Spo- kane in Washington State is a bit
of a digital Puritan. Christine Johnson doesn’t
blog or tweet. When she texts, it is in full sen-
tences, using proper English. She has an iPad
provided by the college, but it doesn’t contain
a single song or Facebook photo. She uses just
one app: Google Maps.
“I use whatever lets me do my work and helps
me use my time well,” says Ms. Johnson, who
took the helm of the state’s second-largest com-
munity-college system in 2010. “I have plenty
of information to manage, so I’m choosy about
what I bring into my already crowded sched-
ule.”
This isn’t to say that the chancellor, 59, who
holds a doctorate in educational administra-
tion, is averse to technology. She remains
wedded to her BlackBerry. And when college
trustees were given iPads, she became a devo-
tee. Here was a way for board members, who
oversee a sprawling district in rural eastern
Washington, to keep in touch and easily share
official documents and PowerPoint presenta-
tions.
The iPad has now replaced the monthly
100-page-plus information packets that had to
be photocopied, collated, and mailed. Docu-
ments are now merged into a single PDF file
and posted online before each board meeting.
“What took one to two days” to put together,
says Linda Graham, executive assistant to the
chancellor, “now takes approximately 30 min-
utes total.” The conversion was so complete
that the board now conducts its business essen-
tially without paper.
With the constant barrage of information,
Ms. Johnson says administrators are sometimes
challenged to stay focused. During meetings,
laptops constantly beep, and mobile devices
vibrate with an urgency that is hard to ignore.
Administrators and faculty are so stretched,
she says, that there’s a tendency to virtually at-
tend more than one meeting at a time. “I think
we’ve all become a little compulsive,” she says.
There’s no longer such a thing as downtime,
because there’s always an e-mail to answer or
a report to review. “It’s true that having more
technology, one works longer,” she says. “Sit-
ting and having a cup of tea, that just doesn’t
happen anymore.” Ms. Johnson often doesn’t
turn her BlackBerry off until late at night, after
a nudge from her husband.
Hardest to turn off:
“It’s a little outdated, but I love the Black-
Berry.”
Can’t get the hang of:
“Getting used to the touch of the iPad. I
actually ordered an additional keyboard.”
Digital prowess:
“I can do PowerPoints, charts, and graphs.”
Favorite reading device:
“I love books. I like to hold them. I like the
feel of them.”
Doesn’t miss:
“I never liked carrying a laptop. They were
heavy and clunky.”
B16 THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION • THE DIGITAL CAMPUS
MAY 4, 2012
