News Archive

Dr. Heather Lakey ’00, M.Phil. ’05 makes philosophy accessible and relevant, encouraging students to slow down, think through their experiences, and recognize the ideas that shape their perspectives. She is the inaugural holder of the COA McNally Family Chair in Philosophy and Human Ecology, a newly endowed faculty position.

Most colleges in Maine have resumed in-person classes this fall, but with all kinds of new precautions: masks, travel restrictions, socially distanced classes and “no-party” policies among them. Yet a small group of professors and students at Bar Harbor’s College of the Atlantic has been able to avoid those restrictions, and are meeting in person with no social distancing required.

Using a microfluid reactor developed in the College of the Atlantic chemistry lab, COA’s Reuben Hudson, Dr. Victor Sojo of the American Museum of Natural History, and students Ruvan de Graaf ’22 and Mari Strandoo Rodin ’20 gain insights into the origins of life on Earth.

The hope, self-reliance, and interdependence co-ops create could offer solutions to some of Maine’s economic challenges, according to College of the Atlantic Cody van Heerden Chair in Economics and Quantitative Social Sciences Dr. Davis Taylor and the Director of the Cooperative Business Institute’s Business Ownership Solutions Program Rob Brown.

Painter and performance artist Daniel Kojo Schrade uses Afrofuturism and non-representational imagery to recontextualize the past, and encourages students to find their own spaces and voices.

A full roster of online, hybrid, and in-person classes are underway following baseline testing of the College of the Atlantic community.

The MDI Food Access Project is a collaborative effort of Open Table MDI, College of the Atlantic, Healthy Acadia, and the Bar Harbor Food Pantry to deliver fresh produce, dry goods, and prepared foods to areas of Mount Desert Island underserved by local food-security organizations.

State-of-the-art storage improvements and enhanced preservation and protection of more than 3,000 animal specimens are on tap for the COA George B. Dorr Museum of Natural History following an award of $96,000 from the Institute for Museum and Library Services and a $23,000 gift from the Dorr Foundation.

College of the Atlantic reopens campus residence halls and classrooms for Fall term with protocols in place for physical distancing and face coverings, adaptations to campus services, and a test, trace, isolate plan to mitigate the risks of COVID-19 spread on campus.

College of the Atlantic is joining with community revitalization group Mount Desert 365 to bring a new, mixed use development to downtown Northeast Harbor. The COA Mount Desert Center will comprise an environmentally sustainable, three-story structure at 141 Main Street, with year-round apartments for student and faculty housing and street-level retail space.