At a convocation ceremony earlier in the day, COA President Darron Collins ’92 and keynote speaker Dr. Nishad Jayasundara ’05, now an assistant professor of marine sciences at University of Maine, welcomed the school’s 48th incoming class and officially opened the term.
“Convocation is the start of the academic year and the start of what I hope and expect will be one of the most adventurous and productive and exciting parts of your education, an education, that if we do things right here, you’ll build on for the rest of your life,” Collins said.
COA is welcoming 131 incoming students this fall — 106 first-year students, 23 transfers, and two graduate students — bringing the total student body to 353. Students at COA represent 36 American states and 53 countries, including Kiribati, Laos, Bhutan, and Afghanistan.
Following the convocation ceremony and the Bar Island Swim, students gathered on the Red Bricks for a cookout, live music, and dancing with the Fremont Street String Band.
College of the Atlantic believes that education should go beyond understanding the world as it is to enabling students to actively shape the future. COA is a leader in experiential learning and environmental stewardship, and is the Princeton Review’s #1 Green College 2016-2018. Every COA student designs their own major in human ecology—which integrates knowledge from across academic disciplines and seeks to understand and improve the relationships between humans and their natural, built, and social environments—and sets their own path toward a degree. The intentionally small school of 350 students and 35 faculty members was founded in 1969 and offers Bachelor of Arts and Master of Philosophy degrees. Learn more at coa.edu.
