2026 COA Summer Institute celebrates 10 years with star-studded week

With a landmark national anniversary as its backdrop, College of the Atlantic will open registration June 1 for the 2026 Summer Institute, a weeklong gathering that brings Stacey Abrams, Ken Burns, Rhiannon Giddens, and others to Mount Desert Island for conversations on the future of American democracy. Toward a More Perfect Union, held July 26–31, will explore the promises and challenges shaping the country’s next chapter through panels, performances, and community events open to all. Register at go.coa.edu/summerinstitute.

Alongside this year’s headliners, the institute will feature conversations with leading voices from science, journalism, and public life, including Robin Wall Kimmerer, plant ecologist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass (Milkweed Editions, 2013); Pulitzer Prize–winning science writer Elizabeth Kolbert; journalist and human‑rights commentator Nicholas Kristof; marine biologist and climate policy expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson; and technology journalist Kara Swisher. Together with COA faculty and invited scholars, they will 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 features a special collaboration with The Criterion Theatre. 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.

Now in its tenth year, the COA Summer Institute has become one of the college’s signature public programs, drawing thousands of participants since its launch in 2017. 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 Francis 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.