College of the Atlantic welcomes 8th president
Speaking before hundreds gathered on the school’s North Lawn, Dr. Sylvia Torti lays out her vision for COA as the future of education.
The investiture ceremony included keynote speeches from Deep Springs College President Emeritus and University of Utah Professor Emeritus Dr. L. Jackson Newell and University of Utah Inaugural Dean of the School for Cultural & Social Transformation Dr. Kathryn Bond Stockton, as well as an original poem written for the occasion and read by poet Eloise Schultz ’16.
“Sylvia Torti is an educator, a nurturer, instinctively advancing everyone around her,” Newell said. “Today, we celebrate the appointment of a new leader, someone who lives the narrative, breathes the spirit of art and science, and knows the competing demands of both discipline and freedom. A perfect match.”
Torti has been associated with Newell and Stockton for many years, having worked with each at University of Utah, where she was initially director of the school’s remote Bonderman Field Station and later dean of the Honors College for over a decade.
Torti was officially invested by COA Board of Trustees Co-Vice Chairs Marthann Samek and Hank Schmelzer, with Schmelzer placing a medallion with the COA seal around Torti’s neck. The seal includes three runes representing humans, earth, and water.
“COA—with our tradition of being a benchmark for change and addressing the challenges facing current and future generations—represents the future of education,” Torti said. “Here at COA, we fulfill our yearning to connect with one another and with the marvelously diverse more-than-human world. Ultimately, it is our sharp and adaptable, ecological minds, shaped by this connected education, that will allow us to discover new ways to flourish collectively.”
Stockton spoke glowingly of COA and about the similarities between COA and her own school, the School for Cultural and Social Transformation at University of Utah, in describing how Torti would be the ideal president for COA.
“We are each a school for ‘heart-to-structure inquiry,’ since we live the interlocking dynamics of shifting sexualities, changing genders, vital immigrations, and emergent struggles against all ableist and racist actions, including inaction in the face of climate change,” Stockton said. “We cultivate pleasure so as to practice healing from layered, painful histories—as people, as a nation. We dream of creating a livable life.”
Also involved in the ceremony were COA Provost Dr. Ken Hill, Associate Dean of Faculty Dr. Kourtney Collum, trustee and member of the presidential search committee Cynthia Baker, and Board of Trustees Chair Beth Gardiner.
“Today marks a beginning, but in reality, it’s just a continuum of everything that COA stands for,” Gardiner said. “In a complicated and often confusing world, the values of COA are more important than ever, and we feel extremely fortunate that we found, in our new president, someone who feels our values as strongly and passionately as Sylvia does.”
Fall term All College Meeting moderator Keenan Ovrebo-Welker provided opening remarks, followed by Schultz’s reading of “One Small Place,” which she composed for the occasion.
“There’s a common ground for us here / beyond priests and robber barons, / a place where actors and audience / change places: in the classroom, / the field station, the auditorium. / Here, generosity is our greatest / asset, and our inheritance not / something owned but shared in / how we tend and attend each other,” Schultz read.
Past COA presidents in attendance included Dr. Steve Katona, Dr. Darron Collins, and Andrew Griffiths. The audience included dozens of Torti’s friends and family members, along with trustees, alumni, students, staff, and faculty. Attendees enjoyed a reception in the center of campus following the ceremony.
Earlier in October, a southern Magnolia tree was planted on the seaside lawn of The Turrets, COA’s iconic, castle-like building, in honor of Torti’s inauguration. COA Head Gardener Barbara Meyers ’89 said the species selection was a daring but well-reasoned experiment as the college anticipates climate change on campus.
Credit: Malek Hinnawi ’25
Torti began her tenure at COA on July 1.
Founded in 1969, College of the Atlantic was the first college in the U.S. to focus on the relationship between humans and the environment. The intentionally small school of 350 students and 35 faculty enriches the liberal arts tradition through a distinctive educational philosophy—human ecology. A human-ecological perspective integrates knowledge from all academic disciplines and from personal experience to investigate—and ultimately improve—the relationships between human beings and our social, natural, built, and technological environments. The human-ecological perspective guides all aspects of education, research, activism, and interactions among the college’s students, faculty, staff, and trustees.