COA Summer Institute focuses on democracy

The 2024 College of the Atlantic Summer Institute: Questions of Democracy will examine democracy in the United States during what many consider to be one of the most consequential years of our times.

Speakers will explore questions of authoritarianism, artistic freedom, and sociopolitical change during a total of 10 sessions over five days, July 29–August 2. Registration opens June 1 at coa.edu/si.

Speakers include The Honorable Stephen Breyer, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, and Joe Scarborough of the MSNBC TV show Morning Joe, among other elected officials and well-known journalists, poets, The Honorable Stephen Breyer is one of the speakers at the 2024 College of the Atlantic Summer Institute. Photo credit: The Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States.authors, attorneys, and organization leaders. Guests will address collaboration amongst politicians, media and misinformation, voter equity and rights, transformative change through philanthropy, the US constitution, the civic role of poetry, and other pertinent and current topics. Attendance is free but registration is required.

“For seven years, the Summer Institute has brought the MDI community together with leaders, thinkers, and doers from around the world to examine some of the society’s most pressing challenges. This year, we dive into questions of democracy during an incredibly important time for our country and the world. Our hope is to stimulate thoughtful dialog, offer new perspectives and learning, and improve our collective understanding and practice of democracy,” says COA Dean of Institutional Advancement Shawn Keeley. “We see summer as a time when the college can give back to our community so we keep these events free and open to the public.”

The institute kicks off Monday evening, July 29, with “Making Amends: The Future Past and Future of American Constitutionalism,” featuring journalist and historian Jill Lepore and Reverend Cornell William Brooks, the director of the Social Justice Collaborate at Harvard Kennedy School. Morning and evening sessions continue through Friday, August 2. Scarborough speaks with William C. Eacho on Jill Lepore, the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker, is one of the speakers at the 2024 College of the Atlantic Summer Institute.“Challenges to Democracy: Media, Misinformation, and the Rise of Authoritarianism” on Wednesday morning. Some other speakers include Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, former ambassador to the UK Phil Lader, and American poet Richard Blanco.

Closing out the institute on Friday evening, “Restoring Collaboration and Goodwill in the House of Representatives,” is paneled by US Representatives Jamie Raskin (D-MD 8th District) and Chellie Pingree (D-ME 1st District), with interlocutor Frances Stead Sellers, journalist and associate director of the Washington Post.

The Summer Institute is College of the Atlantic’s week-long ideas festival that welcomes experts from around the world to share their perspectives on the most pressing issues of our time. The Summer Institute is supported by the generosity of COA Champlain Society members.