Dressed in silks from China and Bhutan, sporting fishing hats, suspenders, a vintage mink jacket and all of one mortarboard, 68 students received diplomas in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic Saturday. The students hailed from 15 nations and 20 states, a fact that was repeated in the greetings given in 18 languages, to welcome both current students and graduating seniors.
   
Sitting beneath a tent draped with flags from the many countries and states represented by the students, the thousand guests listened to Chellie Pingree, a 1979 graduate of COA, and a member of the college's second class. Pingree served as president and CEO of Common Cause until this February, when she left to launch a bid to be Maine's first district candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. Prior to leading Common Cause, Pingree served for eight years in the Maine Senate, with the last four years as majority leader, leaving due to the term limit law. She spoke of how COA helped her to think broadly about issues, and how it taught her to understand how even simple changes have wide ramifications.

National honors for members of the class of 2007 include a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for a year of travel given to Juan Pablo Hoffmaister, who will be studying adaptations to climate change in communities around the world. Hoffmaister, a student speaker at graduation, currently serves as a youth delegate to the United Nations Environmental Programme, one of 14 delegates worldwide.

In his speech, Hoffmaister, who hails from Costa Rica, said he was at first hesitant to come to COA to study because of the reputation the United States holds overseas. "I thought that everyone was rich, and that the wealth of the nation made its citizens oblivious to the social or environmental issues beyond national boundaries," said Hoffmaister. While he discovered that to be untrue, he did find that the nation's "market-driven approach to freedom of speech" prevents Americans from questioning "the price, roots, and implications of the policies that rule them." COA, he said, taught him to "ask the uncomfortable questions that guide us to the truth."

Additional student speakers were John Deans of Topsham, ME, who received a Morris K. Udall scholarship, Genelle Harrison of Akron, Ohio, Victoria Helton of Portland, ME and Brittany Quinn of Rockport, ME.

Nearly 60 percent of the class gained international experience through COA programs in Mexico and Guatemala, or through internships, residencies and other programs. Six students participated in international, United Nations-sponsored environmental conferences, with two serving as official UN delegates. Additionally, members of the class of 2007 have been published in scholarly journals and received awards at international conferences in both biology and ecology.
 
COA requires that every senior complete a three-month project before graduation. This year's collection of projects rose to an extraordinary level. Students completed novels, designed houses, created plans for a housing cooperative at the college and for an international baccalaureate school in the Middle East. They studied sea ducks, monkeys, insects and liverworts, mounted art shows, made videos, enhanced the college's Beech Hill Farm internship program-and much more.

Students will be headed in many directions, some will continue to work on the efforts begun as their final projects, others will be holding down jobs in the Chicago Field Museum and Smithsonian Institution, attending graduate school in Barcelona and law school in Vermont. Yet another student will continue her studies of whale vocalizations near Mount Desert Rock under a grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

College of the Atlantic's distinctive curriculum is interdisciplinary, non-departmental and emphasizes individualized study, independent research and real world application of knowledge. Theory and practice, process and product, reflection and activism are integral to education at COA. In 2005, as part of COA's commitment to environmentalism, the college pioneered the nation's first known zero-waste graduation. In 2006, at the inauguration of President David Hales, COA's fifth president, COA became the first college in the nation to become net-zero for carbon emissions. What carbon emissions COA can't reduce or avoid will be offset by the end of the year.