President, College of the Atlantic
September 5, 2007

The academic tradition of convocation is an ancient one, which predates the existence of this country. It is a gathering of a community of scholars around a common purpose.

At College of the Atlantic, convocation is also a gathering of scholars around an uncommon purpose.

By the end of this century, we will live in a world that is sustainable, peaceful, and just, or we will live in a world that is unstable, violent, and insecure. We have the opportunity to make the choice, and thus we have the responsibility to do so wisely and well.

We Face a Time of Challenge and Choice
When the history of the 21st century is written, it will be dominated by a single characteristic - the exponential increase in the pace and magnitude of change. In the last years of the 20th century, a number of factors have interacted to create an environment of revolutionary change never before experienced by humans or natural systems.

And we have a limited window of opportunity.

As we choose our future, we face a time of the greatest moral choice in human history.
There are four major dilemmas which are essentially moral choices:

The world in which future generations live will, in large measure, depend on how we respond to each of these challenges.

If we are to hope that business as usual will lead us to a sustainable world, we must believe that the same institutions and processes that have led us to this point in human history can lead us somewhere else in the future. Moreover, we must argue that substantial inequities in distribution of political power and material wealth are either inevitable or just.

On the other hand, to abandon our dominant institutions and attack the status quo indiscriminately would have tremendous implications for natural systems and human well-being as well. Neither slavish adherence to the arrangements of the past nor unthinking rejection of them will guide us through the transition to a world that is sustainable and just. We must reject neither our history nor our future.

The Role of Higher Education in Achieving Sustainability 
It is the institutions of higher education that are most essential to actively challenging the forces that threaten both human and natural system well-being. It is in the academy of practitioners and scholars that we will be able to debate and clarify our basic values, and develop a broad understanding that institutions and habits are only the vehicles for those values. If we hold firm to the values, the institutions and habits will respond. If we hold rigorously to the institutions and habits, we will subvert our values. The purposeful, conscious and active evolution of our values, our behavior, and our institutions must begin with higher education.

The task before us will be difficult, yet it is necessary; no other societal institution can play this role.

 "All experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
(~Declaration of Independence).

Education is the force that will enlighten, enable and empower our choices. If we are ultimately successful in negotiating the transition to a just sustainability, it will be because of what we do.

Higher education must move beyond the responsibility to prepare ourselves to live in the world as it will be - we must embrace the responsibility to prepare ourselves to shape the world in which we will live.

College of the Atlantic and Human Ecology

John Cooper, faculty member in music, performed his human ecology essay during the 2007 convocation ceremonies.

It is no accident that problems with clean air, clean water, toxic pollution, genetically-modified organisms, extermination of species, nuclear waste, overpopulation, desertification, deforestation, and global warming have emerged in the same, incredibly brief moment in human history. Nor is it an accident that human ecology has emerged as a new academic focus in this same period. The historic role of education has been to provide society with the capacity to understand, anticipate and respond to the needs of society. We now live in a global society, and there is no natural system unaffected by our actions. The responsibility of education is no longer just to help understand the world in which we will live, but to shape the world in which we want to live.

At College of the Atlantic we study the relationships among humans and the natural world. The province of human ecology is no more - and no less than that. We focus on the interaction of four worlds - the natural world, the social and cultural world of humans, the virtual world that permeates our lives, and the world of the imagination. Our commitment to teaching and to a pedagogy of high-value, personal interaction is magnified by our singular focus on human ecology.

We believe that the relationships among humans and between humans and the environment can be made more sustainable, more peaceful, and more just. We believe that humans are firmly and inextricably embedded in the natural world, and that each person can make a difference.

We are the first generation of humans to have the realistic possibility of building a world that is sustainable, peaceful and just.

We have the knowledge. We have the technology. We have the wealth. And we have the motivation - we can see what we will become if we do not change.

No one of imagination and insight can sincerely assert that business as usual as of the end of the 20th century can produce a world in which we want our children and grandchildren to live at the end of the 21st century.

We can meet the challenge of our times with ideas and with action, but we must choose to do so.

It is appropriate that we approach radical ideas and rapid changes conservatively, fearfully, and skeptically, but it is necessary that we approach them. This is the challenge of our time, it is the challenge to higher education, and it is the aspiration of College of the Atlantic.

Robert Kennedy paraphrased George Bernard Shaw to say, "There are those that look at things the way they are and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" At College of the Atlantic the investigation of both questions is our quest.

In my introductions earlier, you may have noticed that one group was left unmentioned - those who join our convocation for the first time. At College of the Atlantic we follow the European tradition that once you have joined in convocation, you have become an alumnus of this institution.

I ask those who are joining us for the first time to remain seated, and I ask everyone else to join me in declaring the opening of the academic year 2007-2008 by standing and with your applause welcoming the class of 2012.