High-Style Summer School Highseas, a former Bar Harbor great house, is the setting for a special science program for youthful high achievers. By Gunnar Hansen F OR many pre-college students sum- ry. In this gracious setting the students mer is a time for one final fling at Jessica Liu, a high school senior from share meals, study, and form lasting teenage frivolity before the onset of seri- Princeton, New Jersey, and one of the friendships. To round out the experience, ous college study. But, for a select group thirteen pre-college students in last the mountains, shores, and woods of of two dozen young scholars from around nearby Acadia National Park provide year's program, explains why this oppor- the country, summer means the opportu- tunity was SO important to her. "You nity to work side by side with interna- welcome outdoor diversion from long hours spent in the Laboratory, located a have to pull your own weight, and they tionally known research scientists at the bare mile from Highseas. depend on you. They gave me rare mice Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Laboratory to work on. There is a sign at the Lab that At the Laboratory each student works in Bar Harbor. Each summer for more in conjunction with a research scientist says "Authorized Personnel Only," and I than fifty years the prestigious institu- on an independent project of his or her could walk right through! I was actually a tion has sponsored a training program in part of Jackson Lab!" own choosing. This work is supplemented which qualified pre-college, college, and by occasional lectures, demonstrations, graduate students conduct their own re- and discussion groups. But it is the actual T HIS privileged status is extended to search projects under the guidance of only a small number of students work at the bench that is the essence of Jackson Laboratory staff scientists. each year. In all, twenty-five were cho- the program's purpose and value, accord- During the nine-week session, the stu- sen last year from the several hundred ing to Laboratory Director Dr. Barbara dents live in one of the last remaining pre-college, college, medical, and veteri- H. Sanford. "The program is designed to great houses of Bar Harbor's early days nary students who applied. All of them increase interest in the biological sci- as an exclusive summer resort. High- shared rooms at Highseas, where their ences," she explains, "by providing seas, a thirty-two-room brick mansion activities were coordinated by a research young people with direct contact with re- built in the Georgian Revival style and search and research scientists. In return, scientist acting as residence supervisor commanding a broad view of French- and by two program assistants. Two- members of the Laboratory staff receive man's Bay and Schoodic Peninsula, is a thirds of the program's cost is underwrit- the stimulation of the fresh ideas and in- far cry from the average campus dormito- ten by the Clark Foundation of New York terests contributed by the students." City and by the Jackson Laboratory's 88 Photographs by Brian Vanden Brink own research support fund, augmented Cook Little, then president of the Uni- soon after at High Seas. by endowment scholarships and unre- versity of Maine at Orono, brought a In 1924, the same year that Dr. Cook stricted contributions. The remainder of dozen of his students to a farmhouse that began the summer program, Mrs. Eva the operating costs comes from fees. had been made available to the university Cortland Hawkes of New York City Each pre-college student pays an $850 as a research station. That first summer, bought High Seas for $25,000. Descended tuition, although some qualify for schol- with the girls living in the house and the from Gouverneur Morris, one of the sign- arships. College-level students are boys camping out in three tents nearby, ers of the Articles of Confederation, her charged $600, but an automatic stipend of the group worked on six research proj- family had acquired considerable wealth $900 is awarded to college under- ects. One of the students recalled years through railroad, tobacco, and real estate graduates, and $1,000 is given to later that everyone set up their micro- holdings. Mrs. Hawkes, like Professor graduate students. scopes on the dining table between meals Brunnow, led a lonely life at High Seas. The scope of the research these few and that Dr. Little kept his mice in the After her only daughter died at the age of students undertake is as broad as that al- attic. thirteen, she continued to live in the ready being conducted by the staff scien- After the founding of Jackson Labora- house alone, attended by her staff of tists. Last year's projects included work tory, the summer students continued to twelve. in immunology, cell biology, aging, popu- live in tents, and even when the Labora- During World War II Mrs. Hawkes lation density, stress, and computer ap- tory was destroyed in the devastating briefly changed her quiet life. When plications to biological research. Often Bar Harbor fire of October, 1947, the British or American warships were in the results of these projects can be incor- summer program was carried on uninter- Bar Harbor, she would entertain the offi- porated directly into the sponsoring sci- rupted. The students who arrived the fol- cers and crews. At these times the cham- entist's ongoing work. lowing June, however, found that the pagne was abundant, and lobster New- Many of the students go on to careers Lockner Quadrangle, a newly built set of burg was served up in thirty-gallon tins. in the natural sciences. A 1979 survey of wooden buildings, had replaced the tradi- The war brought other changes, too, for "alumni" showed that 87 percent were tional tents as living quarters. The quad- High Seas. Fearful of being bombed, specializing in the biological sciences, rangle remained their home until High- Mrs. Hawkes had the roof painted green while about 71 percent held Sev- for camouflage. eral former students have distinguished Mrs. Hawkes was not in residence at themselves in their particular fields; High Seas when the Great Fire of 1947 some have even achieved worldwide burned hundreds of acres and many of the fame. In 1975 Dr. David Baltimore and vast summer "cottages." She had left, as Dr. Howard Temin shared the Nobel she did every summer, before Labor Prize for their independent discoveries of Day, driven back to New York by her the hormone reverse transcriptase. Both chauffeur in a custom-made Brewster. Ill men participated in Jackson Lab's sum- at the time of the fire, she never knew of mer training program in 1955. it. Miraculously - and with the help of Great accomplishments of this sort are the gardener, who sprayed a constant almost taken in stride at Jackson Labora- stream of water onto the roof during the tory, which is widely regarded as the fire High Seas escaped the destruc- world's leading mammalian genetic re- tion. Soon afterwards, Mrs. Hawkes' search center, as well as the single heirs donated the mansion to the Jackson largest producer of inbred and mutant Laboratory. strains of laboratory mice. George Snell, Highseas is now filled with more life in senior staff scientist emeritus, received a summer than it ever enjoyed as a solitary 1980 Nobel Prize for his pioneering work vacation retreat. With spur-of-the-mo- in the isolation of histocompatibility ment picnics and excursions, as well as genes, and the motivation to excel comes one overnight camping trip, the students from all directions. spend much of their free time together. "None of us in the program would mind Built in 1912, Highseas offers unusually "The place is like a summer camp!" getting the Nobel Prize," jokes Joe elegant student living quarters with its im- exclaims Lorraine Scott, a University of LaCasce, who was a high school senior posing entrance and lofty terrace (oppo- Kansas graduate student in genetics, a from Ellsworth, Maine, when he partici- site), which overlooks Frenchman's Bay. 1981 alumna. pated. "All the sponsors teased us about Joe Lacasce echoed that opinion that. They said, 'Well, you'll have to work seas was donated to the Laboratory by when he said, "This summer has been val- on your oral presentation since you'll the Morris family in 1951. uable for science, but it's also been great have to give it again in thirty years for Highseas by then had acquired its own for meeting people and learning to get your Nobel acceptance speech. And it's history. Designed by Boston architect along with them. I've made five or six entirely possible," adds LaCasce, "since Fred Savage, High Seas (spelled with really good friends I'll be writing to for a already working on the frontiers of two words in those days) was built in 1912 long time. Everybody here now has genetic science." by Professor Rudolph E. Brunnow of twenty-four new friends, really. We're Princeton University. A widower with already talking about a reunion." T HE concept of training has been an several children, Dr. Brunnow built it for Of course each summer, as the pro- integral part of the Jackson Labora- his bride-to-be. Sadly, she never saw the gram comes to an end, many of the stu- tory's work since it was built in 1929, house, for she was one of the passengers dents begin to feel the sadness of leaving thanks primarily to the generosity of a lost on the Titanic when the luxury liner new friends and a place they have group of wealthy Mt. Desert summer res- sank on her maiden voyage that April. thought of as home. "This is probably the idents, among them Roscoe B. Jackson, Dr. Brunnow, however, continued to most special experience I've had," Jes- president of the Hudson Motor Company come to his Bar Harbor summer home. A sica Liu said. "It is the combination of of Michigan, after whom the facility is lover of Mt. Desert Island, he is said to Highseas at that view! and the named. In fact, the summer program was have laid out the famous Precipice Trail people, and Maine itself. All this and re- initiated on the site of the Laboratory on Champlain Mountain, which overlooks search at a world-famous laboratory. It's five years before its construction. High Seas. It was on that challenging a combination none of us will probably In the summer of 1924, Dr. Clarence trail that Dr. Brunnow fell in 1918, dying ever see again." 89