“Professors taught what they wished, and students graduated when (or if) they wanted — only about 55 of the 1,200 or so students who attended Black Mountain in its 24-year existence attained a formal degree — as long as they passed two sets of exams, one roughly at the halfway point and the other before the end of their tenure, whenever they decided that was. The hierarchy, too, was minimal, with students and most faculty living in the same building and taking their meals together. There were none of the ‘usual distinctions… between curricular and extracurricular activities, between work done in a classroom and work done outside it.’ Students often performed chores as part of the ‘work program’; afternoons were left free for activities outdoors, which might have included chopping wood, clearing pasture and planting, tending or harvesting crops…. By all accounts, the manual labor was not only fun but gave students a meaningful sense of contributing to the day-to-day maintenance of the college. It was also a great leveler. ‘You might be John Cage or Merce Cunningham… But you’re still going to have a job to do on campus.’