Los Angeles. The IHM Sisters took part in a process of renewal led by the psychologist Dr. Carl Rogers, founder of the Center for the Study of the Person, an affiliate of the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute. Carl Rogers, and his associates Bruce Meador and Bill Coulson, conducted encounter groups according to the principles of the Human Potential Movement. In such encounter groups, under the direction of a facilitator, participants were encouraged to share their real feelings as they interacted with the other group participants. The first encounter group was held in the summer of 1966 at the Immaculate Heart Novitiate in Montecito, California. With its apparent success, the experiment was begun en masse in 1967, with all the sisters and the schools they ran in the Los Angeles Archdiocese participating. The encounter groups facilitated change in the IHM community. It was among the first groups of women religious to modernize their rule in accord with the directives of Vatican II. Changes included a more democratic form of governance and replacing their religious attire with civilian dress. Cardinal McIntyre refused to let the sisters teach in archdiocese schools unless they wore habits and adhered to a variety of traditional rules. The sisters, in turn, objected to the Archbishop dictating their attire, bedtimes, and hours of prayer. Then-superior Anita Caspary remained firm in implementing the reforms and on February 1, 1970, about 300 of the IHM Sisters followed Caspary and were subsequently dispensed from their vows and fired from the schools in the archdiocese. They went on to form a non-canonical group that admits both men and women known as the Immaculate Heart Community. The 68 sisters who decided to remain were allowed to keep the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary as their name. As of 2015 there are five sisters. An ensuing property settlement left remaining the IHM sisters with certain properties, while those dispensed obtained control of Immaculate Heart College and Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles. The headquarters of the Immaculate Heart Community are at 5515 Franklin Avenue near Western Avenue, in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles. Immaculate Heart Blythe Street serves the San Fernando Valley, located in Panorama City, Los Angeles. The Immaculate Heart Community has since 1943 run a Center for Spiritual Renewal and La Casa de Maria on 26 acres in Montecito, California. This was also the novitiate for many