10th annual COA Summer Institute features star lineup
The College of the Atlantic 2026 Summer Institute features a dazzling lineup of speakers, including former Minority Leader of the Georgia House and founder of Fair Count Stacey Abrams (left), Pulitzer Prize-winning Staff Writer at The New Yorker Elizabeth Kolbert, and filmmaker Ken Burns.
The 10th annual College of the Atlantic Summer Institute is set to bring some of the nation’s most compelling thinkers, artists, and public leaders to Mount Desert Island for a week of conversation and inquiry marking the United States’ 250th anniversary. The 2026 Summer Institute, Toward a More Perfect Union, held July 27 – 31, will explore the promises and challenges shaping the country’s next chapter through panels, performances, and community gatherings open to all.
This year’s guests include politician, lawyer, and voting‑rights advocate Stacey Abrams, acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns, and Grammy‑winning musician and MacArthur Fellow Rhiannon Giddens. Together with COA faculty and invited scholars, they will lead discussions that examine democracy, culture, and civic life from multiple perspectives, continuing the institute’s tradition of convening big ideas in an intimate, place‑based setting.
The 2026 Summer Institute will feature a special collaboration with The Criterion Theatre. Musician Rhiannon Giddens, who will speak at the Summer Institute on Monday, July 27, will perform at The Criterion on Tuesday night, July 28 at 8 p.m. The concert is a benefit for Justice Aid and Soft Power Health.
Institute registration opens May 1 for Champlain Society members and June 1 for the general public. Please check coa.edu/summerinstitute for more details as they are announced.
The COA Summer Institute has become one of the college’s signature public programs, drawing thousands of participants since its launch in 2016. Past speakers have included leaders from government, science, the arts, and journalism, among them Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, The Honorable Stephen Breyer, Ambassador Susan Rice, NIH Director Frances Collins, Thelma Golden of The Studio Museum in Harlem, and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore.
As the institute enters its second decade, it also begins a new chapter in leadership. Shawn Keeley ’00, who has guided the program for the past five years while serving as Dean of Institutional Advancement, has been named the Summer Institute’s inaugural executive director. The role—made possible by a recent long‑term gift—formalizes Keeley’s work shaping the institute’s intellectual direction, cultivating guest leaders, and stewarding relationships with participants and supporters.
“Our island has long been a confluence of arts and sciences, natural beauty and civic life; a place to ask the most important questions of our time,” Keeley said. “The Summer Institute builds on that history. What begins on stage often continues over dinner, on the trails in Acadia, or in conversations weeks later. That sustained dialogue is what makes it so powerful.”
A decade after its founding, the Summer Institute remains rooted in the values that shaped it: gathering people in a remarkable place, posing difficult questions, and creating space for conversations that resonate long after summer ends. This year’s program promises to carry that spirit forward with renewed energy and purpose.