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Links to recent articles about College of the Atlantic. Articles about COA alumni are linked through our alumni pages.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
ECO-EDUCATION
EXPLORING THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN HUMANITY AND ITS WORLD.
and please turn down the lights.
By TAMAR LEWIN
Education Reporter
As the sun goes down over the College of the Atlantic, the cafeteria gets dimmer and dimmer. But only when it is nearly impossible to see the food does a student, finally, get up and turn on the lights - prompting a collective groan at this wanton use of energy. Another adjusts the lights, bringing them down a notch.
At the College of the Atlantic, in Bar Harbor, Me., it's all about the environment. The 325 students share the same major, human ecology, and in the one required course, first-year students grapple with what that means.
Read more.
December 11, 2007
EARNING A DEGREE IN GREEN
College of the Atlantic defines "eco" in the truest sense of the word.
By KIERA BUTLER
Until recently, almost no one had heard of a tiny school called the College of the Atlantic. Located in Bar Harbor, a small town on Mt. Desert Island, which is about halfway up Maine's coast, the campus is far away from just about everything. But this past year, a flood of media attention washed away its cozy anonymity. It was the subject of a New York Times feature, received praise from Hillary Clinton and was listed by the environmental news website Grist as the greenest university. The school, with only 35 full-time faculty members and fewer than 300 students, has been held up as the national model for environmentally-committed institutions of higher education.
It is hard to imagine a more perfect outdoor classroom than Acadia National Park, which is just steps away from the campus gates. The college owns an organic farm, where students learn about sustainable, local agriculture - while they harvest fresh vegetables for the dining hall. In May 2007, COA became completely carbon neutral, meaning that the college will, as COA's president David Hales put it, "stop the emission of greenhouse gases in an amount equal to or exceeding the emissions that we create." And the emissions they take into consideration are not just those from heating buildings or running computers; they also consider all travel to and from campus, including faculty commuting and parents' and prospective students' visits. By 2015, the college will meet 100 percent of its energy needs through renewable sources.
Read more: http://www.plentymag.com/features/2007/12/college_of_the_atlantic.php
Friday August 15, 2008
About.com Guide to College Admissions
Spotlight on College of the Atlantic
By ALLEN GROVE
This week's spotlight takes us up north to Bar Harbor, Maine, home of College of the Atlantic. I chose COA for a couple reasons: 1) not enough people have heard of it; 2) the world would be a better place if more schools were like College of the Atlantic.
With just 350 students and its seaside perch in coastal Maine, College of the Atlantic isn't for everyone. Don't expect a giant symphony hall or a 100-million-dollar athletic facility. What you can expect are small classes, interdisciplinary learning, devoted teachers, a beautiful campus, and a type of student life that earned COA a spot on Princeton Review's "green honor roll." The college is proud of its carbon-neutral campus, and all students major in Human Ecology, the relationship between humans and their environment.
Read more...
Sunday, Aug. 24, 2008
U.S. Colleges' Green Grade: C-
By BRYAN WALSH
If small class size, world-class professors and an endowment larger than some nations' GDPs were the only criteria for ranking colleges, Harvard might always come out ahead. (Guess who tops the annual U.S. News and World Report list this year?) But the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) on Aug. 21 released its own ratings of American colleges and universities - based not on selectivity, but on greenness. The results are a bit surprising. For all the attention that environmental causes have garnered over the past several years, the NWF found that sustainability-related education offered on campuses stayed steady between 2001 and 2008 - and might even have declined. "As an educator, I found this a cause for concern," writes Kevin Coyle, the NWF's vice president for education and training, in the report's foreword.
Why does that matter? If you believe that climate change is will be one of the greatest challenges facing the U.S. and the world for the foreseeable future, you know that we'll need engineers, scientists and even politicians versed in sustainability. That means American colleges need to educate and churn out graduates with the skills for a new energy economy. . . .
Some schools are already ahead of the pack. The NWF report doesn't rank universities by greenness, but it does highlight over 200 of the best performers. Michigan State University got high marks for increasing the number of sustainability courses it offered fivefold since 2000. The University of Colorado, Boulder, has an Environmental Center that employs eight full-time professors and serves more than 100 students. The center provides both interdisciplinary environmental studies, and helps plan the greening of the university. Then there's the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, which offers just one major: human ecology. Though that's a degree of environmental focus that few universities could be expected to match, American higher education could definitely use a deeper tinge of green.
Read the entire article...
July 27, 2008
The Campus: Green, Greener, Greenest
By KATE ZERNIKE
HIGHER education can't resist a ranking: best college, best cafeteria, biggest endowment, biggest party school. It says something about what's important on campus, then, that when the Princeton Review releases its annual guide to colleges this week, it will include a new metric: a "green rating," giving points for things like "environmentally preferable food," power from renewable sources and energy-efficient buildings.
Green is good for the planet, but also for a college's public image. In a Princeton Review survey this year of 10,300 college applicants, 63 percent said that a college's commitment to the environment could affect their decision to go there.
And where there are application decisions to be made, there are rankings. The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, with more than 660 members, is developing a rating for environmental friendliness; at least six other organizations rated campus greenness last year, according to the group. There are lists from Forbes, Grist and Sierra magazines, and an annual report card from the Sustainable Endowments Institute, a research organization that assesses the greenness of an institution's investment portfolio. And the Princeton Review will give its top marks to - ta-da! - Arizona State, Bates, Binghamton University, the College of the Atlantic, Harvard, Emory, Georgia Institute of Technology, Yale and the Universities of New Hampshire, Oregon and Washington.
Campuses across the country are racing to be the greenest of them all. They are setting dates in the not too distant future for achieving carbon neutrality (the College of the Atlantic, an eco-college in Maine, already claims that distinction, as does Middlebury College's Snow Bowl ski area). They are hiring sustainability coordinators (the association's job board used to get one posting a month; now it often has five a week). And they are competing with one another in buying green power (in an Environmental Protection Agency contest among athletic conferences, the Ivies triumphed, with a combined 221.6 million kilowatt hours for the quarter ending in April).
read more...
August 26, 2008
ClimateEdu: News for the Green Campus
College of the Atlantic Aims for the Triple Bottom Line
By XARISSA HOLDAWAY
When businesses go green, they do it for reasons ranging from profit and good PR to reliable supply chains and genuine concern for the environment. Examples of individual companies taking action are plentiful at sites such as GreenBiz, Treehugger, and Sustainable Industries, which already provide lengthy job boards and updates on businesses going green.
Not to be left behind, several schools already offer green business programs, such as Dominican University in California, Colorado State, Antioch University of New England, and the Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Bainbridge Island, Washington, all of which offer Green MBAs. In fact, some of them offer nothing else, and send every single graduate into the world with a basic understanding of the intersection between business and the environment.
College of the Atlantic recently announced a similar initiative, but with a difference: rather than an MBA, COA business students will earn an interdisciplinary degree in Human Ecology, but with a self-designed emphasis in business and economic studies. The program is designed for undergraduates, rather than Masters' candidates . ...
Read more ...
August 11, 2008
Newsworthy
Green scene
Jay Friedlander heads up the College of the Atlantic's green business program
By SARA DONNELLY
Jay Friedlander got an early lesson on responsible entrepreneurship as a Peace Corp volunteer in the African country of MauritaniaThe College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor is already one of the country's greenest colleges - the environmental magazine Grist in August 2007 called it, in fact, the greenest - and now it's bringing its sustainable state of mind to the business world.
This fall, the college will launch what it says is the first undergraduate green business program on the East Coast. The program will train undergraduate students on the basics of entrepreneurship with a sustainable and socially responsible bent. It's the first business program the college has ever launched, and it chose one of Maine's most famous socially responsible businessmen to lead it.
Read more: http://www.mainebiz.biz/news43225.html
May 2, 2008
AMERICA'S GREENEST COLLEGES
By BRIAN WINGFIELD
Long a hotbed of environmental activism, America's campuses are blooming green. Schools are committing to reducing their carbon dioxide emissions, they're funneling endowment money into renewable-energy investment funds, and students--the engine behind much of this growth--are pushing for more.
"This will be the largest issue that my generation ever faces, and I think more and more students are recognizing that," says Nick Devonshire, who is finishing his freshman year at Dartmouth College. A few years ago, Devonshire wrote a proposal convincing his high school to switch its mowers and tractors to biodiesel fuel. At Dartmouth, he's helped create a project that allows students to track their energy use in some dormitories.
What's the greenest college in the land? Maine's College of the Atlantic, where students can major only in human ecology, could make a strong case. So could Harvard, with its eight-year-old "Green Campus Initiative," with 25 full-time professionals and a $12 million fund, from which university departments can borrow to make "sustainable" investments that provide minimal harm to the environment. Then there's the University of Pennsylvania, which purchases more green power than any other U.S. college or university.
www.forbes.com/home/2008/05/02/college-harvard-uvm-biz-energy-cx_bw_0502greenu.html
July 29, 2008
Not to be out-greened: Colleges grow more Earth-conscious to lure students
By Tracy Jan
Harvard pledged this month to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2016. The University of New Hampshire became the first school in the nation this year to use landfill methane gas as its prime energy source. And the College of the Atlantic in Maine plans to open green dormitories with composting toilets in August.
Colleges across the country are rolling out a host of environmentally friendly initiatives, expanding beyond campus recycling and energy efficient buildings to hire sustainability officers to oversee all environmental programs. The push coincides with the rise of "green college" rankings and as the schools use their new policies and practices as a recruiting tool for students who came of age during the release of "An Inconvenient Truth," former vice president Al Gore's popular documentary about global warming.
read more
and read the Boston Globe's blog on this subject
Now, 'green' report cards for U.S. colleges
New rating systems help students choose environmentally friendly colleges.
By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo
July 8, 2008 edition
Students looking to narrow their college choices will soon have something new to consider alongside academics and campus life: A "Green Rating" makes its debut this summer in several of The Princeton Review's popular college guides. Six-hundred college profiles will include a score reflecting factors such as building and transportation policies, food sources, recycling, and availability of environmental courses.
In response to students' growing appetite for all things environmentally friendly, several groups have begun tracking schools' commitment to going green. But such ratings might be productive only to the degree that they spur thoughtful initiatives, pushing schools to collaborate as much as compete, experts say. If it veers toward "keeping up with the Joneses," some observers caution, it might only increase college costs at a time when affordability is a major concern.
"We're definitely seeing schools that look at sustainability as a strategic priority and a way of distinguishing themselves, and there are many schools that are striving to be ... the 'greenest' campus," says Julian Dautremont-Smith, associate director of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) in Lexington, Ky., which has been piloting a rating system in which schools can participate. . . .
. . . Six out of 10 college applicants and parents say the environmental factor would affect their decision to apply to or attend a school, according to a Princeton Review survey this year.
The idea of ranking something as broad as environmentalism gives pause even to some considered leaders on this front. "It's easy to fall into that trap of 'mine is greener than yours,' but it is fundamentally inconsistent with the reasons why colleges should be becoming more sustainable.... We're all part of one system," says David Hales, president of College of the Atlantic, in Bar Harbor, Maine.
A small campus focused on human ecology, it was the first to become carbon neutral. The environmental news website Grist ranked it top among 15 green colleges and universities last year.
Mr. Hales applauds efforts to make transparent what colleges are doing environmentally, including their mistakes, so others can learn from them. But rather than compete, "the key is to do what you can in a way that makes sense for your own institution," he says.
read more
August 11, 2008
Green College Spotlight: College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine
By STEPHANIE ROGERS
Last year, Grist.org named College of the Atlantic it's #1 greenest college in the nation, and it's easy to see why. Despite being a tiny school with just one major - human ecology - it's a model for institutes of higher learning across America, with its progressive programs, innovative ideas and incredibly ambitious goals. It was the first college in the U.S. to pledge carbon neutrality, and more than 270 other schools have followed its example.
Back in 2006, College of the Atlantic's newly installed president, David F. Hales, announced the school's intentions to cut back on their carbon footprint, stating at his inauguration, "Just as all greenhouse gas emissions adversely affect the atmosphere, all emission reductions benefit it," Hales said in a statement. "What we put into the atmosphere in Maine can be offset by reducing emissions here and elsewhere, so that we are able to reduce our college's negative global warming impact to zero."
Read more: http://earthfirst.com/green-college-spotlight-college-of-the-atlantic-in-bar-harbor-maine/
10 of the Greenest Colleges in America
These Schools Are at the Head of the Class in Going Green
By BRIAN CLARK HOWARD
Set in picturesque Bar Harbor, Maine, College of the Atlantic lives and breathes sustainability. The small school is home to only a few hundred students, who are all enrolled in one field: human ecology, defined as the study of our species' relationship to the planet.
In 2007 COA was the first U.S. college to go carbon neutral, but the school didn't stop there. The campus is committed to green building, historic preservation, land conservation, and elimination of toxins. Locally sourced, organic food is what's for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Read more....
May 23, 2008
HEAVEN SUSTAIN US: ENVIRONMENTALISTS HAVE TAKEN OVER THE DORMS
By NAOMI SCHAEFER RILEY
On Monday the trustees of the University of Delaware voted to approve a new yearlong residence life program. Undergraduates will be asked, in a reprise of "show and tell," to bring in one of their "favorite material objects" and explain why it is important to them. They will be instructed to discuss intrusive questions like "How do you define love?" and "Who are you voting for" with their dorm-mates. Finally, this extracurricular curriculum will ask students to "pick a metaphor that illustrates their view of sustainability."
If you have spent any time on a college campus recently, you will realize that "sustainability" is the academy's favorite new buzzword. There's the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE); a Sustainable Endowments Institute that publishes a College Sustainability Report Card; an Ivy Plus Sustainability Working Group, and another one for colleges in the Northeast. There are sustainability offices and officers at dozens of schools nationwide.. . .
If a school's efforts don't quite measure up, administrations can buy carbon offsets to help. And since academics like to travel to conferences almost as much as Al Gore does, Mr. Bodner and his colleagues have recommended such offsets to balance out all the pollution professors create with airplane fuel. So far the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, is the only school to have achieved "carbon neutrality," buying $25,000 of these indulgences. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121150025195715831.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
March/April 2008
CLEANER, GREENER U.
Students are driving the campus climate movement,
fighting Big Coal and putting legislators on notice
By BRITA BELLl
. . . A similarly focused school, Maine's College of the Atlantic, has achieved near perfection in its student-led green pursuits, eliminating or offsetting all its greenhouse gas emissions, supporting on-campus watershed preservation and following the highest standards of green building in all new campus structures.
Read more...
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
WIREC 2008 Ministerial Bulletin
STAKEHOLDER SESSION:
THE ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS OF RENEWABLE ENERGY:
David Hales, President, College of the Atlantic, chaired the afternoon stakeholder session, which focused on barriers and solutions to renewable energy scale up.
Dieter Salomon, Lord Mayor, Freiburg, Germany, and ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability) Executive Committee Member, described the barriers to effective involvement of local governments, highlighting a lack of expertise and difficulties affecting centralized energy generation.
March 1, 2008
MADE TO HELP
Best of 2007
BEST COLLEGE EFFORT: College of the AtlanticThe College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine was the first college to pledge to become carbon neutral in 2006. The small college of just 300 students has just one major: human ecology, or the "study of our relationship with our environment." This tiny college started quite a trend, now more than 459 other US colleges and Universities have signed the American Presidents Climate Commitment committing their campus to go climate neutral. Universities are like small cities and are a glowing example as to what can be done across the country!
Read more...
TRUE GREEN?:
The magazine Plenty features a highly favorable (some might say fawning) article about the unconventional atmosphere and education offered at the College of the Atlantic, one of the greenest campuses in the country. One should note the interaction between the curriculum, student life, and the green facilities, as outlined in the article. When it comes to sustainability, the College of the Atlantic seems to be walking while others are merely talking. The college was featured in a recent Chronicle article about the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment.
Click here for article
Thursday, February 21, 2008
COA, CHAMBER GIVE GREEN LIGHT TO BULB SWAP
By BILL TROTTER
BAR HARBOR - Local business and college officials are hoping that an agreement signed Wednesday will lead to more "green" lights in town.
Some may complain about seasonal traffic congestion on Mount Desert Island, but Wednesday's agreement has nothing to do with cars, unless the traffic issue is viewed through the lens of pollution and carbon footprints.
The pact deals with the environmental issue of electricity generation and usage. College of the Atlantic, a small school known for its environmental studies and policies, and the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce signed an agreement Wednesday by which COA will give Chamber businesses one compact fluorescent light bulb, or CFL, for every incandescent bulb that the business trades in, up to a maximum of 25. The idea is to decrease the amount of electricity used in Bar Harbor by encouraging local businesses to use the energy-saving bulbs in their fixtures.
Read more . . .
December 19, 2007
COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC IS "NET-ZERO"
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAR HARBOR - College of the Atlantic has become the nation's first "net-zero" campus for carbon emissions, school officials said Wednesday.
The college said it has offset its entire emissions output of 2,488 tons over the past 15 months by investing in a greenhouse gas reduction project in Oregon.
Read more . . .
November 13, 2007
HILLARY CLINTON PRAISES COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC'S NET-ZERO COMMITMENT
BAR HARBOR, ME - College of the Atlantic's commitment to reduce energy use on campus and become the nation's first net-zero campus for carbon emissions came to the attention of Sen. Hillary Clinton Thursday. In a press release issued by the senator as part of her primary campaign, Clinton called upon colleges and K-12 schools to reduce emissions on campus and in communities.
"In 2006, the College of the Atlantic in Maine became the first to vow to become a zero-emissions school. Since then 270 more have taken the same pledge," said Sen. Clinton. Continues the release, "Hillary wants to harness the excitement, energy, and activism of young people by calling on them to lead the way for our larger communities."
Read more . . .
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Op Ed
What Bangor could be in 2015
By ANTHONY ANDERSON
Editor's
note: What follows is the writer's imagined take on what Penobscot
River and Bay area residents will be reflecting on as 2015 dawns.
As we make ready to welcome new year 2015 to the Bangor Historic River
Port, it is both auspicious and appropriate to take a moment to look
back and to reflect on our good fortune and how it came to pass. After
130 years of steady decline, just how did Bangor re-emerge as a
prosperous leading economic power in the East?
. . . The University of Maine campus began offering the nation's first
advanced programs and degrees in new energy technologies. It became a
popular study concentration with American and foreign students. As
emerging leaders in new energy technologies, UMaine and College of the Atlantic now stand at the forefront in world studies and reputation.
Read more...
Thursday, May 29, 2008
FOOD SUPPLY/OCEAN FEATURES DETERMINE WHERE WHALES CONGREGATE
By STEPHEN RAPPAPORT
BLUE HILL - A famous crook once said he liked to rob banks because
that's where the money was. According to Sean Todd, large whales like
to hang out in the Gulf of Maine because that's where the banks are,
and the banks are where the food is.
The director of Allied Whale at College of the Atlantic, Todd told an
audience at the Marine Environmental Research Institute last Thursday
that the Gulf of Maine provides a rich opportunity to observe large
whales because it provides a rich source of the food the giant mammals
favor. The reasons are complex, but have much to do with the convoluted
shape of the gulf's sea floor and the flow of ocean currents through
it. http://ellsworthmaine.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14766&Itemid=85
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Youth movement emerges in Primaries
BANGOR, Maine - Adam Goode surprised a lot of people by winning the
House District 15 Democratic primary on Tuesday. It wasn't simply that
he defeated opponent Gerry Palmer, a well-known name in Bangor
Democratic politics, that caused political observers to sit up and take
notice. It was the wide margin of his victory that opened eyes. . .
In the House District 32 race to represent the towns on Mount Desert Island, Elspeth "Elsie" Flemings, a 25-year-old College of the Atlantic graduate, defeated Gary Friedmann, 52, a prominent MDI businessman, by a 61-39 ratio.
"What I heard in my campaigning was that people were excited not just
about my youth but my potential," Flemings said Wednesday. "People are
always looking for new voices."
http://bangornews.com/news/t/city.aspx?a=165553
May/June 2008
MAKING OTHER ARRANGEMENTS
A Voice for Downeast Maine
by CHERYL DAIGLE
BAR HARBOR, MAINE-With his ever-present cap shading his eyes, Howdy
Houghton inserts his spirited voice where and when he feels it needs to
be heard. "Our food system is paramount to everything. Tell me one
person that doesn't eat!" he exclaimed at a public scoping session for
the Penobscot River Restoration Project. Standing beside environmental
and salmon advocates, he stressed the importance of restoring river
herring to the Gulf of Maine.
Most nights, you can find Howdy closing up buildings at the College of
the Atlantic as night watchman; during the day he works part-time
keeping the facilities at Maine Sea Coast Mission in order. But he also
remains true to his past as a commercial fisherman. While fishing for
groundfish out of Bar Harbor in the 1970s and '80s, most of his catch
was cut and sold locally, as were his handpicked mussels in the '90s.
It's this experience and his desire to connect people and the sea that
strengthen his efforts to be a voice for fishermen and sustainable
communities in Downeast Maine. http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2971/
Q&A: Sean Todd, College of the Atlantic
RIGHT WHALE DEATH SIGNALS EMERGENCY RESPONSE
Fall, 2006
By Lori Valigra
WHEN THE PHONE RANG at College of the Atlantic's Allied Whale
research and rescue operation in late July, senior researcher Sean Todd
sprang into action. An endangered right whale had been found dead in
the Bay of Fundy. The young female had died a week earlier, and time
was of the essence for scientists to dissect the body and collect
samples for further study before the scorching heat hastened
decomposition. Todd, a COA professor who also heads Allied Whale,
mobilized his team of students and volunteers, packed up an emergency
response vehicle and drove two-and-one-half hours north from Bar
Harbor, Maine, to Campobello Island in New Brunswick, where the whale
had been brought ashore. There, they assisted Canadian authorities as
they attempted to discern the animal's cause of death. http://www.gulfofmaine.org/times/fall2006/qanda.html
October 9, 2006
COA INSTALLS NEW PRESIDENT
BAR HARBOR, Maine - College of the Atlantic has formally installed David Hales as its new president.
A Sunday ceremony was held beneath a tent draped in the flags of the 51
nations and 47 states from which the school has drawn its students.
"We will attack despair with questions and the power of our
creativity," Hales told school faculty, students, staff, trustees and
other guests. Read the full article
July 8, 2005
THE ART OF DEANSHIP
By RICHARD J. BORDEN
One of the beautiful things about higher education is that deans,
provosts, and even presidents are seldom the products of schools of
management. They are usually drawn from faculty ranks, and many return
to teaching after a period of service, while others remain in lifelong
administrative careers. In all instances, they bring their own
distinctive talents and styles. It is this diversity, perhaps, that
keeps American higher education as strong as it is.
The other side of the coin is that most of what we learn about
leadership and management is on the job. Our lessons come from a
variety of sources. Sometimes we receive guidance directly from a
predecessor or caring mentor. Other times it comes from books,
colleagues, or family members. Occasionally it is our mistakes and
late-night meditations on them that teach us best.
After 20 years as chief academic officer of a small college, I have
just returned to full-time teaching. My decision generated some anxiety
and doubts: Would teaching still be fun? Was I still good at it? Should
I change institutions? I chose to stay where I am, and I feel that was
the right choice.
My academic life started in 1972 on a research professor's track at a
large midwestern university. Then, in the mid-1970s, I discovered a
newly founded, interdisciplinary college on the Maine coast -- College
of the Atlantic. When I joined the faculty of this remarkable little
place, I had no inclinations toward administration. But like many
academic administrators, I was drawn into it unwittingly -- with little
forethought and about the same measure of preparation. Now, 20-some
years later, it is a treat to reflect on some of my own touchstones,
acknowledge their sources, and share them with others.
Read more: http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i44/44b00901.htm
March, 2005
THE YEAR 2025
SENSORY NETWORKS SIGNS OF LIFE
By JOHN GOFF
Great Duck Island possesses one of the most sophisticated wireless
networks on the planet. The tiny island off the coast of Maine boasts
an unplugged mesh network composed of hundreds of palm-size nodes, each
one featuring microcontrollers, memory, low-powered radios, and
batteries. Some of the devices transmit real-time weather data; others
cull information from sensors buried in the rocky soil. All in all, the
windswept island is probably the most well-connected 220 acres on the
planet.
Too bad nobody lives there. Great Duck Island's mesh
network (a research project co-sponsored by the Intel Research
Laboratory at Berkeley and the College of the Atlantic) is designed to
monitor the habitat of the elusive storm petrels that nest on the
island. Researchers believe data culled from the sensors will help them
better protect the endangered seabirds.
Read More: http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/3709826/3/c_2984312?f=archives
May 21, 2008
LONGLEY FILM WILL DOCUMENT LIVES, STRUGGLES OF HOMELESS
PROJECT SELECTED FOR DAVIS PROJECTS FOR PEACE AWARD
Margaret Longley of San Juan Island, a sophomore at College of the
Atlantic, will spend the summer creating a film on the
disenfranchisement of the homeless.
Her project, titled, "Homelessness and Voting in a Democracy," is
funded by the Kathryn Wasserman Davis Projects for Peace Award. These
awards came about in 2007, on Davis' 100th birthday, when she committed
$1 million to fund 100 grassroots projects by college students to, she
said, "bring new thinking to the prospects of peace in the world."
Davis repeated her gift for 2008.
Longley is a filmmaker who worked in the Iraqi war zone on the Academy Award-nominated film, Iraq in Fragments. http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/sanjuans/jsj/news/19107734.html
COMMUNITIES
TWO CITIES, ONE VERY BIG BOX:
Coastal towns take on Wal-Mart
by CRAIG IDLEBROOK
Maine coastal communities are wrestling with big-box proposals that could drastically alter the character of their towns.
Retail giant Wal-Mart has proposed building superstores in several
towns along the Route 1 corridor; the Super Wal-Marts would be so vast
that they would dwarf other big box stores.
Local government officials often welcome the additional tax revenue
a Super Wal-Mart might bring, but grassroots planning groups fear the
superstore's arrival could spell the end of downtown life. . . .
Though a formal plan has not been submitted, a Massachusetts
development firm is working on a proposal to build a
500,000-square-foot shopping center in what is now a wooded parcel
across from Home Depot. The anchor store for this shopping center would
be a 230,000-square-foot retail store large enough to have both Home
Depot and the current Wal-Mart inside it. Community planning activists
say that store can only be a Super Wal-Mart.
"Nothing else in the country fits that footprint," says Daphne Loring, a senior at nearby College of the Atlantic.
Loring has become the defacto spokesperson for a new citizen
planning group called Wise Planning for Ellsworth. The group formed
shortly after plans for the shopping center went public. . . .
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT
Amy Wesolowski
Triton High School in Runnemede.
Wesolowski,
18, a senior at Triton, recently installed soil erosion steps for her
Girl Scout Gold Award project at Old Pine Farm Natural Lands Trust, a
32-acre nature preserve in Blackwood Terrace, Deptford. Wesolowski, who
has been a Girl Scout for 13 years, installed 14 steps with help from
two Eagle Boy Scouts and members of her Girl Scout troop, 320 in
Runnemede.
They're designed to prevent soil erosion and make it easier for visitors to walk around the land trust.
College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.
February 8, 2007
COA STUDENTS HOST CLIMATE SUMMIT
Bar Harbor/San Francisco (PRWeb) February 8, 2007 -- Silicon Valley
ecorestoration firm Planktos, Inc. is pleased to announce its
co-sponsorship of the 3rd annual Maine Climate Summit Feb 9-11 with the
Sierra Student Coalition. The event is being hosted by the SustainUS
Maine Geocluster at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.
The Summit will focus on building the Maine youth and student
climate movement and feature speakers and workshops on climate science
and technologies to combat climate change as well as young people's
decision-making and policy-shaping potential on campuses, in their
communities, and at state, national, and international levels.
This year's keynote speaker will be Alison Drayton, a senior United
Nations Development Programme official with broad experience in the
climate change arena. Drayton previously distinguished herself on the
UN Commission on Sustainable Development and as a negotiator for the
United Nations climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Convention
to Combat Desertification.
College of the Atlantic alumna, Julia Clark of Planktos, Inc. will
host a workshop on cutting edge science-intensive climate mitigation
technologies. The session will feature Rob Niven, an expert on carbon
capture and storage in concrete, and Clark's presentation on the
Planktos paradigm, which leverages the formidable CO2 sequestration
potential of restored marine and terrestrial ecosystems to generate
saleable carbon offsets and sustainably fund ongoing rehabilitation of
natural food chains, habitat, and biodiversity. Planktos is launching
large climate forest parks in Europe and plankton restoration projects
in the Pacific this spring. Its multi-beneficial green approach not
only promises broad environmental gains, full scale restoration of
ocean plankton life alone could annually remove 3~4 billion tons of
atmospheric CO2 or approximately half of all manmade emissions today.
February 5, 2007
MAINE CAMPUS ONLINE
BAR HARBOR YOUTH SUMMMIT TO ADDRESS GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
By ADRIANNE HESS
The Third Annual Maine Campus Climate Change Youth Summit is set to be
held at the College of the Atlantic (COA) on the weekend of Feb. 9. The
weekend will feature workshops and activities relating to the causes,
effects and prevention of global climate change.
The timing couldn't be more appropriate, in light of the scientific
community's recent warnings regarding global warming and the effect
that mankind has on the phenomena. On Feb. 2, U.S. scientist Susan
Solomon said, "There can be no question that the increase in greenhouse
gases are dominated by human activities," in a report in Paris on the
topic.
"I think this climate conference will be quite exciting," said
William Broussard, a biology major and nature sound recorder who
studies at both the University of Maine and COA. "Various students,
researchers and community members will get a chance to weigh in and
take part in the most recent happenings and findings surrounding the
climate crisis."
Thursday October 19, 2006
THE GREENEST CAMPUS: COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC GOES EMISSIONS NEUTRAL
By BEN ADLER
The environmental movement received a jolt that could reverberate
across the country last Friday when new College of the Atlantic (COA)
president David Hales announced a commitment to making the school a
"Net-zero" emitter of greenhouse gases. If institutions across the
country begin to follow suit, the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions
- and the concomitant reduction in global warming - could be
significant. http://campusprogress.org/features/1229/the-greenest-campus
Friday, August 26, 2005
COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC RECOGNIZED FOR ITS HIGH RATE OF FOREIGN STUDENTS
By ABIGAIL CURTIS
BAR HARBOR - For Salahaldin Hussein of Palestine, getting accepted to
the College of the Atlantic was the easy part. He had graduated from a
college preparatory high school for international students in Wales and
was ready to come to Maine when he hit a roadblock. "I had visa
troubles," the senior, 21, said Tuesday. "It took me seven months to
get in [the United States]."
The wait was worth it, he said.
"I applied to College of the Atlantic knowing this was
exactly what I wanted to do," the computer science student said. "I
pushed hard to get that visa. I didn't want to give up until the door
was completely closed."
Despite the growing difficulty some foreign students have
had obtaining visas, the tiny college has had a global impact recently
because of its high percentage of foreign students.
Of the 270 students enrolled for the upcoming school year,
61, or 22.5 percent, hail from foreign shores. This has earned the
school accolades from the U.S. News & World Report's 2006 Survey of
Best Colleges, where it ranked first among liberal arts colleges for
having the highest percentage of international students.
Thursday, November 3, 2005
DANCING FOR AIDS ORPHANS BACK HOME IN ZIMBABWE
By RAY ROUTHIER
Tawanda Chabikwa is using his knowledge of African dance and art to raise money to help AIDS orphans in his native Zimbabwe.
Chabikwa, 20, is a student at the College of the Atlantic in Bar
Harbor. This Friday he'll put on a concert of a African dance and open
a show of his own African art.
Proceeds from both events will got toward funding a nonprofit
organization, Ndini Wako, which Chabikwa started to help at least some
of the 1 million AIDS orphans of his homeland.
Chabikwa is majoring in human ecology, with a focus on social entrepreneurship in the arts. Read more: http://entertainment.mainetoday.com/qa/051103qanda.shtml
November, 2005
BERTHOUD GRADUATE PART OF SIX STUDENTS TO ATTEND UN CONFERENCE
BAR HARBOR, ME - When member nations from across the globe meet at the
United Nations convention on climate change this week, six College of
the Atlantic students will be among the official youth delegates.
Among the six is Kathleen Tompkins, a sophomore from
Berthoud with a background in science and international issues. "I am
looking forward to speaking with diplomats from various countries about
what they are doing since to Kyoto Protocol has gone into effect," she
says. "I am hoping to gain a better understanding of the policy-making
process and how it is that countries are able to come to an agreement
on what they need to do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
This is the first time the nations who ratified the Kyoto
protocol have met since the agreements became binding in 2004.
Representatives from the parties to the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change, UNFCCC, will be discussing the future of international
commitments to confront climate change.
The conference runs from Nov. 27 through Dec. 9, though the
COA students, who will be attending as accredited observers, will be
leaving Dec. 3. The six, all members of SustainUS, a youth
environmental organization with a chapter at COA, believe they'll have
better access to policymakers during the first week.
The students, all deeply interested in the environment, are
quite excited about the potential this conference presents for hands-on
learning about global politics, for making lifelong connections within
the environmental movement, and for making a difference. they expect to
be talking to delegates and the media about the particular
environmental interests of youth.
May 11, 2005
COA MUSEUM OFFERS ACADIA SOUND 'PICTURES'
By ABIGAIL CURTIS
BAR HARBOR - Deep into a cold November night this past fall, College of
the Atlantic senior Aaron Lewis strapped a microphone to his head and
settled quietly beside Lake Wood in Acadia National Park.
His goal was to record the snapping and popping sounds created as the
small lake froze over. But Lewis was startled as the sound of a beaver
breaking the newly formed ice interrupted his chilly vigil.
"It
was really scary," he said Tuesday evening at the opening of his sound
exhibit at COA's Dorr Museum of Natural History. "I was so surprised by
that sound. I recognized it as a beaver, but I couldn't see it. That
was a thrill."
Lewis recorded that incident, and many others, as part of his senior project, "Sounds of Mount Desert Island."
Sunday, April 10, 2005
COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC STUDENT AWARDED MAJOR FELLOWSHIP
By BOB KEYES
BAR HARBOR - College of the Atlantic senior Sarah Drummond spent last
summer painting seabirds and their habitats on Great Duck Island, 10
miles off the coast of Mount Desert Island.
Beginning
this summer, she'll paint seabirds, insects, rocks, lichens and more on
islands around the globe as a recipient of a Thomas J. Watson
Fellowship. This fellowship, given to 50 college seniors each year from
selected institutions across the United States, offers the graduates
$22,000 to travel outside the states on a pursuit of their own design.
Drummond's
project, a venture called, "Inquiring Eyes: Natural History Artists and
Island Exploration," will take her to London, Argentina, Chile, Tahiti,
Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka to follow the work of the great
naturalist illustrators who accompanied early exploratory voyages.
Drummond
is from Woodland, Colo. Her senior project is an exhibit in the
college's George B. Dorr Museum of Natural History called, "Parallel
Worlds: Four Seabirds of Great Duck Island." The exhibit combines
blow-ups of her own drawings with her research of four Great Duck
Island seabirds.
Saturday, April 23, 2005
COA STUDENTS ATTEND U.N. COMMISSION
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