Question: How did John Andrew Rice make  Black Mountain College an influential establishment?
Context: Camp Rockmont for Boys is a Christian residential boys summer camp in Black Mountain, North Carolina.  Rockmont was founded in 1956 on the former campus of Black Mountain College.  Three full sessions, including a 13-day, a 20-day, and a 27-day session, are held each summer, with each full session also being split into shorter sessions, including 6-day or 13-day sessions.  Capacity for each session is about 400 boys, with each session varying slightly depending on enrollment. Black Mountain College, a school founded in 1933 in Black Mountain, North Carolina (near Asheville, North Carolina), emphasized the study of art as central to a liberal arts education.  It was organized around John Dewey's principles of education.  Many of the school's faculty were influential in the arts or other fields, or went on to become influential, as did their students.  Although notable during its short life, the school closed in 1957 after 24 years.  The history and legacy of Black Mountain College are preserved and extended through Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, in downtown Asheville, NC. The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid-20th-century American "avant-garde" or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Mary Caroline Richards (July 13, 1916, Weiser, Idaho – September 10, 1999, Kimberton, Pennsylvania) was an American poet, potter, and writer best known for her book "Centering: in Pottery, Poetry and the Person".  Educated at Reed College, in Portland, Oregon, and at the University of California at Berkeley, she taught English at the Central Washington College of Education and the University of Chicago, but in 1945 became a faculty member of the experimental Black Mountain College in North Carolina where she continued to teach until the end of the summer session in 1951.  It was her teaching experience and growth as an artist while at Black Mountain College that prepared the foundation for most of her work in life, both as an educator and creator.  Later in life, she discovered the work of Rudolf Steiner and lived the last part of her life at a Camphill Village in Kimberton, PA.  In 1985, while living at the Kimberton Camphill Village she began teaching workshops with Matthew Fox at the University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland, CA during the winter months.  Mary Caroline Richards died in 1999 in Kimberton, PA. Hazel Larsen Archer (April 23, 1921, Milwaukee, Wisconsin - May 18, 2001, Tucson, Arizona) was a twentieth-century American female photographer who attended and then taught at Black Mountain College.  Her images and prints captured life at Black Mountain, and her art theory and teaching influenced major 20th-century artists and personalities. John Andrew Rice Jr. (1888 – 1968) was the founder and first rector of Black Mountain College, located near Asheville, North Carolina.  During his time there, he introduced many unique methods of education which had not been implemented in any other experimental institution, attracting many important artists as contributing lecturers and mentors, including John Cage, Robert Creeley, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, and Franz Kline.  During World War II, he made it a haven for refugee European artists, including Josef Albers and Anni Albers, who arrived from the Bauhaus in Germany.  Later, Black Mountain College became the platform for the work of Buckminster Fuller, who made the college the site of the first geodesic dome.  Because of his strong ideas and unusual educational philosophy, Rice became involved in many debates in the socially conservative 1930s, '40s and '50s, becoming known as a very outspoken critic of the standard model of higher education in the United States. Blue Ridge Assembly Historic District is a national historic district located near Black Mountain, Buncombe County, North Carolina.  The district encompasses 29 contributing buildings and 1 contributing object associated with the Blue Ridge Assembly, conference center of the Young Men's Christian Association.  The main building is Eureka Hall (originally named Robert E. Lee Hall, but renamed in 2015) designed by Louis E. Jallade.  It was built in 1911-1912, and is a three-story, seven bay, frame building with a full-height octastyle portico.  Also located on the large central courtyard are the Gymnasium (c. 1915), Asheville Hall (1926), Abbott Hall (1927), and College Hall (c. 1928).  Other notable buildings include the Martha Washington Residence (c. 1914), Craft and Child Care Center (c. 1925), and 19 frame cottages (1913-1927).  Black Mountain College was founded here in 1933 and operated on the site until 1941. The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) is an exhibition space and resource center located at 56 Broadway in downtown Asheville, North Carolina dedicated to preserving and continuing the legacy of educational and artistic innovations of Black Mountain College (BMC).  BMCM+AC achieves its mission through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibitions, publications and public programs. Finstein was born in Boston, MA.  After serving in the military during World War II, he attended Black Mountain College, and spent time in New York and San Francisco, becoming friends with poets Allen Ginsberg, LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) and Joel Oppenheimer, among others.  He traveled to New Mexico for the first time in the 1950s to visit his long-time friend Robert Creeley, and moved there not long after.  He lived in Taos and Santa Fe, NM, on and off for the rest of his life.  His poetry, much of it inspired by the landscape of the American Southwest, was influenced by both the Black Mountain poets and the poets of the Beat Generation. John Andrew Jackson was born on a Country plantation in Sumter County, South Carolina.  His grandfather was born in Africa.  John Andrew's mother was named Betty and his father was known as Dr. Clavern, because of his ability to cure snake bites.  John Andrew had five brothers and five sisters.  Before he left the plantation, two brothers and two sisters were dead.
Answer: was the founder and first rector