Connecting COA alumni with the college and each other 

Natalie Springuel '94 and Rich MacDonald Serve as Naturalists Aboard A Prairie Home Companion Curise
Save the Date: Honoring Steve Katona
Deb Soule '80 Celebrates the Twentieth Anniversary of her Business - Avena Botanicals
Alumni Giving Percentage Reaches 29%
Wing Goodale M.Phil '01 Studies Mercury Contamination of Birds for The Biodiversity Research Institute
COA Co-Sponsors First International Eco-tourism Conference in the United States
COA Alumni, Faculty, and Staff Remember Dick Davis
Alumni Websites

Natalie Springuel '94 and Rich MacDonald Serve as Naturalists on A Prairie Home Companion Cruise
Natalie almost deleted the message that had come sometime last October. It was an email from a Philip Keillor, a name totally unknown to her. Out of curiosity, she opened it to find that coastal engineering specialist Philip Keillor was also brother to Garrison Keillor, the humorist storyteller whose 'A Prairie Home Companion has been a public radio phenomenon for more than 30 years.

Do you know anyone who would be interested in joining a Prairie Home Companion cruise as a naturalist? the email asked. Sure do, replied Natalie. Us. She had no doubt she could rope in her ornithologist husband, Richard MacDonald.

Read more about their cruise with Garrison and the Prairie Home Companion crew

Save the Date: Honoring Steve Katona
Please join us, on April 29, 2006, for an all-day salute to Steve Katona's 34 years of service to College of the Atlantic.  We hope to highlight Steve's contributions as a scientist, teacher and president during the formative years of the College. The day will begin with a mini-symposium by friends and colleagues honoring Steve's life-long involvement with Marine Mammal Research, proceed to a picnic dinner for the entire community, and end with a "roast" featuring skits and slides of Steve Through The Ages.  If you have footage or stories that you just KNOW Steve would love to forget, PLEASE contribute!!  Contact John Anderson JGA@coa.edu

Deb Soule '81 Celebrates the Twentieth Anniversary of her Business Avena Botanicals
When Deb Soule was growing up in South Paris, Maine, she would watch her grandmother walk in the fields and woods, gathering food she would later prepare and eat. At five or six years old, Soule could hardly know that her grandmother's foraging would inspire her fascination with the many ways a person can take charge of their health using the healing properties of plants.

In 1985, she transformed her passion for plants and healing into Avena Botanicals. On a plot of land in Rockport, she planted Avena's first garden. Ten years later, in 1995, she moved Avena down the road to a 32-acre farm. Avena's gardens and apothecary are open to visitors Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. year-round. You'll find well-ordered pathways of herbs, flowers, trees and ponds, 150 different plants thriving under the care of compost, cover crops,
biodynamic preparations and permaculture techniques, along with a fully-stocked apothecary of tinctures. Soule is the author of A Woman's Book of Herbs: The Healing Power of Natural Remedies and appears in the just-released documentary, photography show and book, Maine Women living on the Land by Lauren Shaw.                                    
                                             visit Avena Botanicals at http://www.avenaherbs.com/

Alumni Giving Percentage Reaches 29%

Thanks to everyone who contributed to COA during the 04/05 fiscal year. This marks the sixth year in a row that we have increased our alumni givng percentage!  For comparison, the average private college alumni giving percentage is about 30%. Click here to see how we are progressing toward this year's fund-raising goals.


Wing Goodale M.Phil '01 Studies Mercuy Contamination of Birds for The Biodiversity Research Institute
Since graduating from COA with his masters of philosophy in Human Ecology, Wing has been very busy studying toxics in birds in Maine and beyond. After seeing an article on his work in The New York Times, I contacted Wing to ask him a few questions about his work with The Biodiversity Research Institute.

Click here for an interview with Wing

COA Co-Sponsors the First International Eco-Tourism Conference in the United States
From September 14 through 16th, Bar Harbor welcomed The International Eco-Tourism Society (TIES) and international leaders of eco-tourism for their first annual conference held in the United States. The conference featured an opening address by Maine's Governor John Baldacci and keynote address by oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle (pictured at left).

"COA graduates were intimately involved with helping to organize the first ever conference on ecotourism in the US, held right in Bar Harbor this past weekend. Conference attendees came from Hawaii, Alaska, and everywhere in between to talk about sustainable tourism and the many issues that surround what many argue is the biggest 'business' in the world, tourism."
-MIchael Boland '94, President of the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce and local entrepreneur
 


COA Alumni, Faculty, and Staff remember Dick Davis
On a warm Sunday in early July, alumni, faculty, staff and friends gathered by the ocean at COA to dedicate a bench to the memory of Richard Slayton Davis, COA's first philosopher.

"Dick Davis was born and raised to make sense of human ecology"
-Bill Carpenter

Click here for excerpts of remarks made in memory of Dick at the dedication.

Alumni Websites
If you would like to have your website posted on the Alumni Websites page, email or contact me with the url and I will add it to the list (sakeeley[at]coa.edu 207-288-5015 x268). To see what other alumni have their websites posted click here