College of the Atlantic today announced that it has received a challenge grant from the Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation to construct an innovative cross-cultural living and learning center. The Foundation made the challenge pledge of $2.5 million in recognition of Kathryn W. Davis, for whom the student residence village will be named. The amount will cover nearly half the cost of constructing the Kathryn W. Davis Student Residence Village.

The village will be designed by noted environmental architects Bruce Coldham and Tom Hartman of Coldham Architects, and will include innovative social, cultural and environmental elements. Created as three individual structures each with two adjoining units, the houses will include kitchens, common living, recreation and study areas, as well as dorm rooms for a total of 51 students. Once the village is complete, it will raise the percentage of students living on campus from the current 33 percent to nearly 50 percent.

Shelby M.C. Davis, a trustee of the foundation, referred to its mission in saying, "We work to promote global understanding and to support the arts, education and the environment, all causes my mother holds dear. The environmental and cross-cultural innovations of this residence are just the kinds of efforts my mother has been working for all her life." Kathryn Davis, who turns 100 on her next birthday, holds a Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Geneva and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She has a special interest in Russia, which she has visited 32 times.

The Davis Residential Village will provide a home to COA's international, national and local students. With the support of the Davis United World College Scholars Program, College of the Atlantic has the largest percentage of international students of all liberal arts colleges in the United States. "We are delighted to think that this housing will expand our efforts toward these fine young international scholars," adds Davis. "We all know that cross-cultural understanding begins with friendship. In the Kathryn W. Davis Residential Village there will be many opportunities for deepened connections as students make meals together and discuss everything from their favorite music to the fate of the world."

Equally compelling to the directors of the Davis Foundation is the unusual environmental sophistication of these buildings, among the most ecologically sensitive of any college dormitory in the nation. With such considerations as biomass pellet heating, maximized solar energy siting and exceptional thermal integrity, the architects say that the village's environmental footprint will approach zero. To have an environmentally-advanced building be part of an academic institution means that each of the green advances will become part of the education of COA's students - both those who live within the village and those who share meals and friendships with their occupants.

"I am deeply honored to have this excellent building named for me," says Mrs. Davis. "I know it will enhance through life experience the research being done at the Kathryn W. Davis Center of International and Regional Studies, expanding our work in bringing international students to COA." The Davis Center of International and Regional Studies was dedicated in 1999.