That topic is community. St. John's is, quite obviously, a kind of community. We're a residential college with dormitories, shared dining facilities, and a common plan of study. It's clearly a sweet phrase, conjuring up images of teachers and their students in conversation, sharing an insight, proving a point, puzzling over a problem together. In many colleges and most universities the phrase really doesn't apply.
Most universities are too large, too scattered, and too impersonal to form a real community.
To be a real community of scholars, you need more than people who teach or write or learn in some place. Rather, you need people who teach each other, learn from each other, and write not so much as to stand out, but, instead, to enlighten one another. You need people who receive ideas from others as they give ideas to others. People, as I think we are here, who take ideas seriously and give ideas seriously. But all communities have their norms - ways and habits and rules that make such a community possible.