COA in the News

Links to recent articles about College of the Atlantic. Articles about COA alumni are linked through our alumni pages.

December 11, 2007

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

Op Ed
What Bangor could be in 2015
By Anthony Anderson
Tuesday, January 1, 2008

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...

COVER STORY

March 1, 2008

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

Bar Harbor: COA, Chamber give green light to bulb swap
By Bill Trotter
Thursday, February 21, 2008

BAR HARBOR - Local business and college officials are hoping that an agreement signed Wednesday will lead to more "green" lights in town.

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.

"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 . . .

OLDER ARTICLES

MAINE COLLEGE MAKES GREEN PLEDGE
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 10, 2006

The tiny College of the Atlantic in Maine has vowed to offset all of its greenhouse gas emissions, making it the first college in the nation to seek to fully mitigate its impact on global warming.

The newly installed president, David F. Hales, said in his inauguration Sunday that the college will either cut the amount of fossil fuels burned in connection with campus activities or invest in emissions-cutting projects elsewhere to compensate. The school, which is in Bar Harbor and has about 300 undergraduates, will also offset emissions generated by student travel to and from campus. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/09/AR2006100901096.html

Christian Science Monitor logo

AMERICANS TRY TO SHIFT INTO 'CARBON NEUTRAL'
To combat global warming, many try to remove as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they add to it.add to it.
By Gregory M. Lamb | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
December 6, 2006

Are you living "carbon neutral" - or better yet, "carbon negative"? Have you gone on a "carbon diet"? Are you shrinking your "carbon footprint" on the earth or aiming for a "net zero" lifestyle?

If so, you've got lots of company, including celebrities, sports teams, airlines, moviemakers, tour operators, and at least one college. They're all trying to make sure that they're removing at least as much carbon (in the form of carbon dioxide, or CO2) from the atmosphere as they add from heating their homes or businesses or traveling by car or airplane. Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1206/p13s01-sten.html

CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE AT COA

SUMMIT ON CLIMATE TO BE HELD AT COA
By Eric Russell
Saturday, February 03, 2007

BAR HARBOR - As frigid weather maintains its stranglehold on the state, the phenomenon of climate change isn...trade;t immediately palpable in this tip of the United States.

But organizers of the third annual Maine Climate Change Summit, to be held next weekend in Bar Harbor, said global warming and its environmental impact reach everyone, and any chance to discuss the topic is a good one.

"Vulnerable communities around the world are already suffering the impact of climate change," said Juan Pablo Hoffmaister, a senior at College of the Atlantic and one of the event...trade;s organizers.

The summit, which begins Friday, Feb. 9, and runs through Sunday, Feb. 11, was organized by COA students and members of SustainUS, a youth environmental movement. It also is sponsored by the Sierra Student Coalition and a group called Planktos.
read more

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.

MAINE CAMPUS ONLINE
BAR HARBOR YOUTH SUMMMIT TO ADDRESS GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
Adrianne Hess
February 5, 2007

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."

MORE ARTICLES ABOUT COA

THE GREENEST CAMPUS: COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC GOES EMISSIONS NEUTRAL
By Ben Adler
Thursday October 19, 2006

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

A PLEDGE TO TACKLE GLOBAL WARMING
By Paul Thacker
Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Some institutions commit to hiring celebrity faculty and some to building winning sports teams, but a small college in Bar Harbor, Maine is doing its best to slow global warming. With help from its students, all of whom major in human ecology, College of the Atlantic has resolved to fully mitigate its future effect on climate change by reducing use of fossil fuels and offsetting any carbon emissions with investments in renewable energy. College officials say the policy is the first of its kind for an institution of higher education.

"Being a big institution may have advantages, but moving quickly to address major social and environmental challenges isn't always one of them," said David Malakoff, who graduated from the college in 1986 and is science correspondent for National Public Radio. "So, we may not have a football team and a marching band, but we'll be the first carbon neutral campus on the planet." Read the entire article at: http://www.insidehighered.com/layout/set/print/news/2006/10/11/green

Maine Sunday Telegram

MAINE CAMPUSES EMBRACE SUSTAINABILITY
By Beth Quimby
Sunday, November 12, 2006

A recycling bin for empties in the dorm foyer doesn't cut it anymore.

College and university campuses have gone green big-time in the past few years. Lecture halls are heated with biodiesel fuels, the food in the dining hall is grown down the street, and the leftovers are composted.

By embracing the sustainability movement, schools hope to contain soaring energy costs, show the rest of the world what can be done to help reverse climate change, and even win the notice of potential students.

"We ought to mirror the action that we expect in society, and for us to be irresponsible polluters is even less acceptable than for anyone else," said David Hales, president of the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, which this fall became the first college in the nation to adopt a "net zero" greenhouse gas emissions policy.

The policy means the college will use less fuel to reduce its own emissions or invest in activities such as wind power to offset the emissions created by the college, including travel to and from the school by students. Read the entire article at http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/061112sustain.html

COA INSTALLS NEW PRESIDENT
October 9, 2006

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 http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/articles/2006/10/09/coa_inaugurates_new_president/

BIRDS IN HAND
College of the Atlantic researchs study Leach's storm petrels on Great Duck Island
By Abigail Curtis
Friday, July 07, 2006

It looked as if the meadow might swallow Brittany Slabach whole.

The lanky College of the Atlantic sophomore lay flat on her belly in the rock-dotted field and shoved her arm up to the shoulder in an underground burrow. She stretched her fingers into the depths of the tunnel in hopes of catching a tiny soot-gray bird.

Slabach was smeared with dirt but happy as she spent the foggy forenoon doing one of her favorite things - grubbing, or searching, for just-hatched Leach's storm petrels. Slabach is spending the summer studying the migratory birds, which nest on the remote, uninhabited outpost of Great Duck Island seven miles south of Mount Desert Island.
http://www.bangornews.com/news/templates/?a=136997

FORMER INTERIOR DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TO HEAD COA
By KEITH SHORTALL
Aired March 22, 2006

College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor is now 34 years old, and has named a former Interior department official and lifelong environmentalist to serve as its fifth president. David Hales, most recently counsel for Sustainable Policy to Worldwatch Institute, takes over this summer at COA:

"Human Ecology can be defined really very simply. It's how the humans and the environment interact. What are those basic interrelationships? There's a natural world, there's a built or cultural world that humans have put together. And in the modern world, there's certainly a virtual world. . . . And then finally there's a fourth world which is really emphasized at COA and that's the world of vision, the world of dreams, the questions of not just what the world is like, but what could the world be? How can we react to the changes in our world so that we make choices, understand their consequences and create a world that our grandchildren will be just as happy with as our grandparents were?"
Listen to the entire interview:http://www.mpbn.net/asx/060322coa.asx

WHAT YOUR COLLEGE DOES FOR YOUR NATION
COA ranks #27 in Washington Monthly Guide to colleges

This month, U.S. News & World Report releases its annual rankings of colleges. First published in 1983, the guide has become its own mini-event: College presidents, education reporters, alumni, parents, and high school juniors alike all scramble to get their hands on the rankings. Its release is followed by weeks of gloating from the top-ranked schools and grumbling from those schools that dropped a slot (or 14) from the previous year. Inspired by the popularity, other guides - from Princeton Review to Peterson's to Kaplan - have rushed to compete. College rankings are now so influential that universities and higher-education journals hold regular chin-stroking sessions about whether the numbers-game has too much influence over the way schools behave. New York University's Vice President John Beckman sniffed to the Harvard Crimson this spring that the rankings ...are a device to sell magazines that feed on an American fixation with lists, which is precisely what institutions say when they're trying to duck accountability.

There's a good reason for the American fixation with rankings - if done correctly, they can help tell us what's working and what's not. Of course universities ought to be judged. The key is judging the right things.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0509.collegeguide.html

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
COLLEGE OF CALVIN
MILK SQURTING? NO, THAT'S BIOMECHANICS
By PATRICK T. REARDON
Published November 4, 2005

The strip that professor Celso Brunetti finds so useful begins with Calvin telling Hobbes, "You know, I don't think math is a science. I think it's a religion." Equations, he says, are like miracles, and answers have to be taken on faith.

"As a math atheist," Calvin says in the final panel, "I should be excused from this."

Often, early in a semester, Brunetti will flash this strip on the screen for one of his graduate classes on statistics and business finance at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

"Everybody laughs at Calvin and Hobbes, and that gives me an opportunity to ask them why they are so scared by mathematics," Brunetti says. "I say to my students that mathematics is close to a religion, and it's close to a philosophy. It's a language."

It's been 10 years since Bill Watterson brought his Calvin and Hobbes comic strip to an abrupt end at what seemed to be the height of its acclaim. But, on college campuses across the nation, professors such as Brunetti continue to use the playfully drawn story of a wildly imaginative 6-year-old and his droll stuffed-tiger sidekick as a way of teaching everything from moral relativism to the Faust legend, from physics to psychology to Cubism.

Helen Hess, a biology professor at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, says she puts a Calvin and Hobbes strip at the top of weekly biomechanics homework assignments to illustrate the particular theme. For example, when the subject is the movement of fluids through tubes, she'll show a strip in which Calvin ponders the tendency of milk to squirt out a classmate's nose when he laughs.

"The cartoons are mostly to set a tone that the living world is fascinating and that a sense of playfulness can enhance your appreciation and even your understanding," Hess says. Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-0511040021nov04,1,2309541.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

Thursday, November 3, 2005
DANCING FOR AIDS ORPHANS BACK HOME IN ZIMBABWE
By RAY ROUTHIER
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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

YOUNG PEOPLE EMBRACE THE UN MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
[Two College of the Atlantic students were among the three students in the United States delegation to this conference, you can see them in the last picture, wearing red and green.]

BANGALORE, India, October 17, 2005 (ENS) - Young environmental leaders from 67 countries have been meeting in Bangalore since Friday to further the Millennium Development Goals that the entire United Nations system is focused on accomplishing. There are eight goals, but the youth leaders chose three as their focus - to ensure environmental sustainability, to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, and to promote gender equality and empower women. Through Tuesday, delegates are reviewing their individual and group involvement in helping to achieve the goals by 2015, share experiences, and inspire each other to do more for the environment.
Read More: http://uk.oneworld.net/external/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ens-newswire.com%2Fens%2Foct2005%2F2005-10-17-04.asp

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

Boston Globe

Thursday, July 21, 2005
TEACHING GLOBAL UNDERSTANDING
By JENNA RUSSELL

NORTHEAST HARBOR, MAINE - For decades, as founder and manager of the flourishing Davis New York Venture Fund, Shelby Davis was guided by two signature strategies: Look for visionary leaders and invest for the long term.

Now 68, Davis is using the same approach to advance an ambitious, new philanthropic venture, one that is transforming student enrollments and the undergraduate experience on dozens of college campuses.

Convinced that he can alter the course of international relations by sending outstanding foreign students to study with Americans, the semiretired fund manager has quietly built one of the largest privately funded scholarship programs in the United States.

This fall, Davis's United World College Scholars Program will meet the full financial need of almost 700 college students from 100 countries, at 58 campuses from Maine to California. Read more.

I'm not much one for reunions at my alma mater. But I did have a 25th reunion last month at one of my journalistic alma maters, so to speak, College of the Atlantic, the small, environmentally oriented, alternative liberal arts college located off the coast of Maine. It was one of the colleges I covered during my first tour of duty as a freelance education writer during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Like most of the stories I did during my early, gallivanting days, the one I did about COA began with a hunch. The little information I had about this remote, decade-old, solar-powered cousin of Bennington, Goddard, et al., was that COA offered a bachelor of arts degree in something called human ecology, and that staff and students spent a lot of time observing and tracking whales. I was intrigued.

. . . My subsequent dispatch about "Earth College," as I good naturedly dubbed the place, reflected my affection for the spunky laboratory school. "To be sure, the college needs a gymnasium and a student center," I reported. "But the College of the Atlantic is alive and well. That in itself is something to celebrate."

Privately, I wasn't so optimistic. The future for alternative or experimental colleges, I well knew, was increasingly grim, having recently reported the demise of one of COA's experimental siblings, Eisenhower College, whose lofty minded World Studies program and holistic educational philosophy was not unlike COA's.

Hence my delight and surprise, upon recently visiting the college on the Web, to encounter an institution that, at least on the evidence of its kaleidoscopic site, was thriving. But Web sites can be deceiving. It was time to check out College of the Atlantic again.

And so, last month, just as I had a quarter of a century before, I set off for the college's rustic, coastal Maine campus, next to Acadia National Park. Once again I found myself auditing classes, hanging out with COA students and faculty in the main dining room, listening to the swooning sea gulls, just as I did long ago.

My green reunion. Best reunion I ever had. Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/07/13/sander

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]."

"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. Read More: www.bangornews.com/news/templates/?a=118916

Eat your art out
Food is foremost at LandEscapes 2006 in Mount Desert
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Alicia Anstead

All the heirloom apple trees on Beech Hill Farm in Mount Desert are leafy and thriving - except for one. Wrapped in discarded food packages from the streets of New Orleans, this apple tree is bearing the brunt of bad food habits and bad food practices. While its body is covered in a brightly colored quilt made from potato chip bags and candy wrappers, its top-most barky branches and remaining leaves appear to gasp for clean air and light.
Read more about LandEscapes at COA's Beech Hill Farm: http://www.bangornews.com/news/templates/?a=137817

Saturday, June 4, 2005
ALL IS RECYCLED EXCEPT FOR THE GRADUATES
By KATIE ZEZIMA

BAR HARBOR - There will be no Dumpsters for Kate Tompkins to use when she moves out of her dorm at College of the Atlantic this weekend. Garbage cans will also be banned from move-out and all graduation events.

There will be no trash receptacles because, if all goes according to plan, there will be no trash.

College of the Atlantic, a 270-student liberal arts college in Bar Harbor, Me., known for its its environmental friendliness - it offers one degre, in human ecology - is trying to hold a waste-free graduation. Read more: http://query.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F00D1FFA3F5C0C778CDDAF0894DD404482

Sunday, June 26, 2005
COLLEGES COMPETE TO SHRINK THEIR MARK ON THE ENVIRONMENT
By JULIET EILPERIN

BEREA, Ky. - Professor Richard K. Olson's voice swelled with pride as he reached the final stop -- the bathroom -- on a tour of
Berea College's newest student housing.

"The throne!" he declared, displaying a massive, cream-colored composting toilet.

With its state-of-the-art wastewater treatment system, recycled wood cabinets and low-energy fluorescent lighting, Berea's $10 million "Ecological Village" represents the cutting edge of environmental architecture. And while this small southern Appalachian college still consumes plenty of natural resources, it has spent several years trying to preserve its surroundings by conserving energy and shifting to recycling.

While Berea has gone further than most, it is hardly alone. After decades of inertia, American colleges and universities have begun to recognize that they have lagged behind the corporate world in tackling energy conservation and efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions and trash generation, and many are taking new steps to minimize their environmental "footprint."

From the College of the Atlantic's zero-waste graduation this month in Maine to Ball State University's biodiesel-powered shuttle fleet in Indiana, schools are moving in ways large and small to cut energy use and carbon dioxide emissions.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/25/AR2005062501273.html

Sunday May 8, 2005
IN MAINE, A TOTALLY GREEN GRADUATION
By MARCELLA BOMBARDIERI AND JENNA RUSSELL

Lots of colleges are going green Dartmouth just hired its first sustainability director but College of the Atlantic, in Bar Harbor, Maine, is taking environmentalism to new heights this spring. The tiny "alternative" college, with 280 students and one degree, in human ecology, plans to hold the nation's first waste-free graduation June 4. Family members will be picked up at hotels by electric buses; plates and cups will be made from compostable starch-based materials; and ceremony walkways, once marked with plastic rope, will be bordered by woven kiwi vine instead. Anything left over will become part of an art project created by students. The zero-waste zone will even include dorms as students move out for the summer: no dumpsters will be provided, and belongings that can't be donated or recycled must be carried off campus. Read more: Read more

Graduation festivities this week at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, has been billed as the nation's first known "zero-waste" graduation ceremony. The school has placed recycling bins in strategic locations to collect paper and plastic bottles. It will compost food wastes to use in its gardens and in community plots. Utensils, bowls, and cups will be made from starch-based materials. Pathways will be designated by woven kiwi vine, and buses will ferry visitors to events.

UPI
June 26, 2005
U.S. COLLEGES, UNIVERSITIES GOING GREEN

WASHINGTON - After decades of inertia and lagging behind the corporate world, U.S. colleges and universities are going green.

From Maine's College of the Atlantic zero-waste graduation to Indiana's Ball State University biodiesel-powered shuttle fleet, college campuses are trying to outdo each other as they build energy-efficient dormitories and cut carbon dioxide emissions, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

The more than 4,000 U.S. colleges and universities -- driven by everything from the rising cost of heating and power rates to student activism to create sustainable campuses -- can have a significant impact on the environment.

Yale University has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 13 percent from 1990 levels. However its 2.3 million tons of carbon dioxide emitted each year is more than that of 32 countries.

"It's almost like an episode of 'Can You Top This?'" said Princeton University dining services director Stuart Orefice, whose cafeterias serve organic cereal and ship students' unused food to local pig farms. "It's a good-natured competition, if you will."

The College of the Atlantic (Me.), known for its forward-thinking green initiatives, will spearhead the first known zero-waste commencement this month. From the week-long ceremonies and events leading up to the graduation to the actual day of commencement, all trash generated from the festivities will be reused, composted, or recycled, says Millard Dority, the director of campus planning, buildings and public safety at COA. "No trash will go to the landfill during that week," Dority says.

Recycling bins will be strategically placed to collect papers and programs, and composters, which feed the college's gardens, will absorb all food waste. In addition, all utensils will be made from compostable starch-based materials and pathways for the procession will be marked by woven kiwi vine instead of plastic rope which was used in years past. There will also be "eco-police" or student volunteers donning Zero-Waste Graduation t-shirts made from organic cotton, patrolling the area to ensure that candy bar wrappers and other items are placed in an eco-friendly home.

"The easier you make it for people to recycle, the more it's going to get done," says Dority. "The opportunity to dump everything they have in their hand will be only 15 feet away at any given time. We will be making it easy for our guests to take responsibility for their waste." Read more: http://www.universitybusiness.com/page.cfm?p=814

WEB INDIA 123
June 27, 2005
U.S. COLLEGES, UNIVERSITIES GOING GREEN

WASHINGTON - After decades of inertia and lagging behind the corporate world, U.S. colleges and universities are going green.
From Maine's College of the Atlantic zero-waste graduation to Indiana's Ball State University biodiesel-powered shuttle fleet, college campuses are trying to outdo each other as they build energy-efficient dormitories and cut carbon dioxide emissions, the Washington Post reported Sunday. Read more: Article Here

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

November 7, 2005
LEADING BY EXAMPLE
LAN N. NGUYEN

". . . Finding a mentor can be as easy as striking up a conversation. John Anderson, the William H. Drury chair in evolution, ecology, and natural history at the Maine's College of the Atlantic met his mentor, UC-Berkeley professor Ned Johnson, by asking him questions after class." Read more http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/15861/

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

Sunday, June 26, 2005
SAVE THE WHALES, SAVE THE FISHERMEN
By RAY ROUTHIER

Tora Johnson has a pretty good background for someone writing about the dueling efforts to save whales and preserve local fisheries.

She has taught environmental science and currently teaches human ecology at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor. She has worked on fishing boats and is married to a boatbuilder and fisherman who comes from a family of fishermen.

Her recent book, Entanglements, might seem on the surface to be mostly about saving the right whale, the world's most endangered whale, which is often injured by fishing gear.

HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD TO WORK WITH FLYING FOX POO AND LOVING IT
November 14, 2006

Wading through mud to collect flying fox guano may not be everyone...trade;s idea of a good time, but American university students, Julie Byrd and Christiana Swanson have travelled halfway around the world to do just that.

Julie and Christiana are in Gladstone completing a 10-week internship at Central Queensland University...trade;s Centre for Environmental Management and have been collecting flying fox guano as part of their research project.
Read the entire article at: http://www.uninews.cqu.edu.au/op001-1.php?ra=1164065341&id=3839

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.
Read the entire article: http://www.workingwaterfront.com/article.asp?storyID=20060601

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT
Student: Amy Wesolowski
School: Triton High School in Runnemede.
Accomplishment: 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.
What are the steps designed to do? They're designed to prevent soil erosion and make it easier for visitors to walk around the land trust.
What college do you plan to attend? College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.
Article Here

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]."

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.

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.

Thursday, November 3, 2005
DANCING FOR THE AIDS ORPHANS BACK HOME IN ZIMBABWE
By RAY ROUTHIER, Staff Writer

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.

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.