People must be as free as possible to make their own choices and create their own lives - that radical but fundamentally American vision of individual responsibility was the basis for education at Black Mountain College. Students were expected to take primary responsibility for their education, to be engaged in the learning community and to seek, find and create opportunities for personal growth.

The college was an intense, high-pressure, exciting educational experience, one that disturbed students' ideas of the status quo and often profoundly changed their lives. It required nothing but expected everything - a total commitment of emotion, intellect, and creativity.

Individual responsibility meant few rules and regulations: no required courses, no set schedule of examinations, no formal grades. A student was not in direct competition with others but was to achieve his or her own maximum potential. Faculty members were relatively free to choose the courses they would teach. At the beginning of each term, students could sit in on classes to decide which they wished to take. Faculty members were readily available to give advice and guidance when needed.

Despite the freedom, the BMC experience was demanding and rigorous. Faculty and students shared very high expectations of themselves and everyone else, which kept everyone sharp! Class discussions required acute thinking, openness to new ideas, and a willingness to be challenged at every turn. Originality was expected. One student has said, "If you didn't bring something new to every single class, a new idea or piece of work, you just didn't want to show up."

The curriculum was divided into two tiers defined not strictly by years but by student knowledge and readiness: a Junior Division and a Senior Division. Students moved from Junior to Senior by passing difficult oral and written examinations "devised to test capacity as well as knowledge." Students in the Senior Division specialized in a particular area and after further work might qualify for graduation. To graduate required an even more rigorous set of exams, including the use of an outside examiner - a distinguished professor chosen from another school for his or her expertise.

For reasons including BMC's intensity, rigor, and remoteness, as well as the social upheaval of the 1930s and 1940s, very few students actually graduated from the college. However, those who transferred to other schools usually had little trouble receiving credit for their BMC work, as they could demonstrate a quality education.

And an extraordinarily large number of former BMC students - disproportionate to BMC's small size - went on to make major contributions: as artists, architects, writers, teachers, businesspeople, and in many other careers.

ON EDUCATION

[Black Mountain College] . . . always had its quota of highly gifted and zealous teachers. Perhaps Rice himself was the most brilliant; even his enemies granted that he was an extraordinary and magnetic personality. He used to shatter his pupils' illusions, disturb their complacency and send them on their way greatly changed people.
- Eric R. Bentley, Faculty 1942-44

It was the permissive openness that spoke to me most. Anyone could sit around the seminar table and participate in discussions with the great minds of renowned persons. No one said you could not take part because you lacked some previous requirement.
- Hannelore Hahn, Student 1945-47

. . . Black Mountain is an experiment in education. It is an experiment in that its future form cannot be given in advance. It is an experiment in that it is free to submit to constant formation and re-formation. It is an experiment in that it is itself not so much an answer as a question.
- Albert William Levi, Faculty 1945-50

One day down at Black Mountain College David Tudor was eating his lunch. A student came over to his table and began asking him questions. David Tudor went on eating his lunch. The student kept on asking questions. Finally David Tudor looked at him and said, "If you don't know, why do you ask?"
- John Cage, Faculty 1948, 1952, 1953 Summer Sessions