College of the Atlantic OCTOBER 1. 1974 College of the Atlantic began its third year on September 15 with a convocation address by trustee and visiting faculty member John Dreier. Mr. Dreier's address clearly communicates some ideas by which College of the Atlantic lives and grows. We would like to share it with you. I suppose the normal thing for me to start out with is to wish everyone good luck during the forthcoming college year. This I gladly do. But I would first like to congrat- ulate all of you--and myself as well for the good fortune that has brought all of us together on this occasion. We gather here in a spot of extraordinary beauty. The varied natural environment of land and water, forest and bog, mountain and meadow, cannot fail to delight us and to excite our curiosity and interest. And we assemble as members of a small college community that is dedicated to sharpening our awareness of that environment and to maximizing its impact on our thought and action. We also assemble--for better or for worse--at a time in history when forces of change throughout the world are exerting their influence on our lives more directly and more powerfully than ever before. Nationally, internationally and locally, traditions are being upset, old values are being challenged, and new problems are being created. These disturbances in the climate of our life are due to many things. One of them is the pervasive influence of the media which bring everything to our immediate and visual attention. Another is the fact that the phrase "one world" which for many years has been a favorite rhetorical expression has now become a stark reality. Never has the interdependence of the globe been more forcefully demonstrated than in recent years. Who would have dreamed a decade ago that a group of small, middle eastern countries--considered by western standards to be poor, backward and weak, would suddenly gain a mighty grip on the jugular vein of the entire industrialized world--and in fact on the international financial system of the entire globe--by virtue of their ownership of petroleum? Yet such is undeniably the fact today, despite the tendency of many of us to indulge in the illusion that the energy crisis is over-- because gasoline seems again to be readily available for our autos, outboards and ORV's. In the area of war and peace, we learned a bitter lesson in Viet Nam that we could not serve as a self-appointed world police- man as some had thought we should. The tragic experiences in Southeast Asia tore our country apart and contributed to the development of Watergate and its incredible train of events. Yet a retreat into isolationism offers no constructive guide to our world role. If we turn to the Middle East, it is clear that the maintenance of peace in that area is of the most extraor- dinary importance to the economic well being and political position of the United States. It has justified an unprecedented personal participation of our Secretary of State first, bringing about a cease fire and now in seeking to prevent a renewal and escalation of violence. While we cannot be the world's policeman, we may often have to serve as peacemaker. Even right here in Maine we sense the impact of national and world trends on our local scene. It is the national demand for energy that produces plans to build oil refineries on the Maine coast--or construct more nuclear power plants adjacent to our cold water. Policies affecting the interests of Maine's coastal communities in ocean fisheries are the subject of discussion by 5000 delegates from 135 countries assembled in a United Nations conference in Caracas, unfortunately without constructive results. What has all this to do with our assembly here today? Is there a connection between these broad global developments and this small community of about 100 people on Mount Desert Island? Can College of the Atlantic say or do anything of significance in connection with the vast and dismaying problems that afflict the world? I am convinced the answer is "yes." For it was the very existence of global problems of the environment that provided this college with its reason for being. And it is an awareness of that fact that has attracted students, teachers and other members of the college community to its doors. The size of the community is no measure of its value. What counts are its quality and the spirit that moves its members. But there is another reason for believing that this college has an important role to play in relation to the global scene; it derives from the very nature of the problems with which we are faced. It is clear that these problems of man and his interrelated human and physical environment have to do more with values, goals and attitudes than with purely technical and scientific knowledge. To be sure, there is a continuing need for pressing ahead with scientific discovery and technological improvement--the very demands of environmental balance require this in many fields. But more deeply, I believe, it is becoming clearer that underlying all the questions of technology and its application to contemporary life, lies the need for different values and attitudes that estab- lish different goals for society. We are not going to achieve a balanced relationship with our environment if we continue to pursue the same goals of wasteful consumption. This is the fact that gives a special opportunity to an educational institution such as our College, for it is only through education that we can develop the new human attitudes so urgently needed. I think that there are some things about College of the Atlantic that give it a special opportunity to serve this need and that reinforce my feeling of our good fortune at being part of it. First, it is a pretty well established policy that this college is not to become an isolated enclave. It would be very easy and highly enjoyable for us all to retreat to this attractive island resort and spend our time contemplating the beauties of nature and decrying the ugliness that exists elsewhere. But that is not our purpose. We do not wish to evade the problems of the world, but to utilize our location here to gain a perspective on them. Meanwhile we maintain as much direct contact with them as possible, so that our study and thought can be related to the realities of the world around us and contribute in some measure to their ultimate amelioration. This is, of course, reflected in several aspects of the college program: the combination of work and study; the deliberate purpose of integrating the College with the surrounding communities of Mount Desert Island and the State of Maine; and participation of students and staff in the study and analysis of concrete problems of this area. Another feature of the College that has a direct bearing on its role is the spirit of freedom and experimentation that exists here. This applies to the college both as a social community and as an educational institution. The maintenance of free societies where creative thinking can flourish is one of the great needs of the world today--made more and more difficult by the increasing complexity of life and the consequent inevitable need for more organization and structure. We are fortunate in our small size in this respect. It gives us not only the pleasure of knowing every one else personally, but also makes it far more easy to work out the problems of freedom versus structure. There are places where freedom is sought at the expense of structure, and others where freedom is sacrificed for the sake of order. It seems to me that the basic philosophy and interest of College of the Atlantic, recognizing the existence of environmental imperatives, implies an acceptance of the fact that there is a need for both freedom and order in a healthy society. We have here an opportunity to illuminate in some small degree, at least for ourselves, one of the most difficult problems of human history: how to enable human beings to enjoy the creative opportunities of freedom without dissipating their energies in chaos, and how to enjoy the benefits of structure without stultifying the creative spirit. After sitting in on some of the orientation sessions the other day, I was tremendously impressed, as I am sure all of you were, with the rich variety of courses that are being offered this term. Not only are the subject matters fascinating, but also the methods of study--the pattern of courses, workshops and programs of individual study. The atmosphere of freedom and experimentation is very much in evidence there. I have also gained the impression--and I hope I am right in this--that the dominant purpose of teaching here is not only to provide high grade instruction in various techniques, skills and fields of knowledge. but to utilize them as means to deeper understanding of life and of ourselves. All of this adds up, I believe, to a very important and significant point in relation to our role with respect to the problems of the age. For one of the causes of our present human situation is, I believe, that we have tended to split our concept of human nature and neglect the total man in our development of his separate parts. We have had political man, economic man, and technological man--but what we need to do now is to put man to- gether again and encourage the whole man. It becomes increasingly clear that we cannot resolve the ma.jor problems of our times by judging them on one basis only--as political problems, or economic problems. or technological problems. They must be approached as human problems in the solution of which the several facets of human nature must be brought to bear. Only in this way can we achieve a balanced judgment, for example, as between the economic necessities of energy development on the one hand and the desire to preserve the intangible values of the environment on the other. Thus it seems to me that we are at College of the Atlanti returning to a very fundamental concept of education. It involves the ancient desire of human beings to understand their world not only that they may get ahead and live more comfortably, but that they may grow in understanding and live more fully. The knowledge we seek is partly practical knowledge that helps the human species to feed, clothe, house and protect itself. But learning is also an effort to penetrate the deep and everlasting mysteries that are evoked by questions of purpose and end, and by the relationship that we as human beings must have to the vast forces of the uni- verse--forces which at all times influence our lives but of which we are often only dimly aware in the midst of bustling activity. I believe it was Goethe who said that man's greatest capacity is wonder. I believe this capacity can be encouraged here. and I hope it will be for all of us. For wonder starts the process of inquiry that leads to understanding. And it is wonder that de- mands attention to the intangibles of life and dares to ask the unanswerable questions. In pursuing them we encounter the happy paradox that in seeking to understand the world around us we sooner or later come to learn more about ourselves. I started out with congratulations on the good fortune that brought us all together here. I conclude now with the wish that this good fortune may continue to preside over your year at the College, and enrich it with the excitement of discovery, the thrill of understanding and the satisfaction of learning more about yourselves and your fellows as well as the world of which we are a part. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC OCTOBER I, 1974 NEWSLETTER Students This year's entering class consists of 71 students, of whom 30 are new to College of the Atlantic. Most of the new students, and several second and third year students, partici- pated in the college's second outdoor orientation program, canoeing for a week on the Allagash. Two students from Huxley College of Environmental Studies are spending the fall term in Bar Harbor as the initial phase of an exchange program which is expected to eventually involve faculty members as well as students. Faculty There are five new teachers at the college this fall. Visiting faculty member Donald Aitken, Professor of Environmental Studies at San Jose State, is teaching The Nature and Social Foundations of the Environmental Crisis, a seminar for advanced students, and An Introduction to Environmental Studies. Elizabeth Aitken is conducting a studio course in Spinning, Natural Dyeing, and Weaving. John Dreier, a college trustee and former director of the Interamerican Center of the School for Advanced International Studies, at Johns Hopkins, is offering a fall-term course entitled An Introduction to the World Political Environment. Susan Zell, Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Maine, Orono, will offer two courses: Functional Vertebrate Anatomy (winter), and Mammalian Physiology (spring). The college's new full time faculty member is Roc Caivano, an architect and designer who will chair the building committee and work closely with master planner Edward L. Barnes, as well as offering two studio courses: Two-dimensional Design: Drawing (fall), and Three-dimensional Design: Exercises in Doing (winter). Interns Internships for up to one year are required of all students who wish to earn the B.A. in Human Ecology. Internship and Placement Director Elmer Beal, Jr., views the internship as "a very important mechanism for providing a broader educational experience and as an opportunity to test the relevance of the college's practical and philosophical programs and goals." Interns (cont'd.) Four students are presently on internships, two from the entering class of 1972 and two who entered in 1973. Steve Savage's study of mussel beds on Bar Island is being sponsored by the University of Maine. Sydney Rathbun is doing cetacean research with Dr. Ed Mitchell (a 1974 summer forum speaker) at the National Fisheries Research Board in Montreal. Kate Darling, also studying whales, is spending the year in Norway, and George Lyons is teaching school in Washington, D.C. Trustees At its fifth annual meeting in July, the college's Board of Trustees elected three new members: Mr. Amos Eno, Business- man, Director of the Audubon Society, of Princeton, New Jersey and Bar Harbor, Maine; Dr. Winthrop Libby. President Emeritus of the University of Maine at Orono, now a resident of Steuben, Maine; Mr. Benjamin Neilson, Attorney, of Philadelphia and Northeast Harbor, Maine. Alumni Catherine Johnson spent a year at College of the Atlantic, working on student recruitment and admission, before enrolling as a first-year student in the University of Maine Law School, Portland. William Ginn, following a year of studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, has been named the Assistant Director of the Maine Audubon Society.