COA THE COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Volume 13 . Number 1. . Spring 2017 GREENING THE FUTURE ECOLOGICAL HOPE FOR CHALLENGING TIMES Michael "Spike" Reid, international mountain leader and river activist, paddles beneath transformers on the Ganges River above Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. Photo by Galen Hecht '16. COA The College of the Atlantic Magazine Letter from the President 3 News from Campus 4 Why Teach in Taiwan? 8 Watson Report Globalism 10 GREENING THE FUTURE Ecological Hope for Challenging Times 15 Community as Classroom 16 Growing Greener 20 Changing the Rules Cooperatives, Institutions, Economics 24 Enriching the Earth 26 In Their Own Words Alumni reflect on the UNFCCC 30 Elutriate Kate Donohoe ('91) 36 Poetry Thursdays 40 Remembered Earth Kirsten Stockman '91 42 Donor Profile William and Donna Eacho 47 Alumni & Community Notes 48 In Memoriam 53 Transitions 54 The Wood Pellet Boiler 56 2017 Summer Events 57 COA From the Editor The College of the Atlantic Magazine Volume 13 Number 1 Spring 2017 There was quite a discussion over what to name this issue of COA. President Editorial Darron Collins '92 quite liked Sustainability 2.0; others thought it restrictive. Editor Donna Gold Editorial Advice Heather Albert-Knopp '99 Faculty member Rich Borden suggested Only One Earth, the title of a book Rich Borden co-authored by René Dubos, a trustee during our first five years. That got my Lynn Boulger Dianne Clendaniel vote, but I was countered by those who thought it "too 1970s." That dates Rich Dru Colbert and me for sure. Those were formative times, years of change when populist Darron Collins '92 Anna Demeo actions pushed our nation to expand civil rights and halt a shameful war- Jennifer Hughes actually, it was all shameful, the war, the segregation, the limits on women, Tyler Hunt '16 Rob Levin the discrimination against lesbians and gays. As a teenager at the time, I held Matt Shaw '11 an innocent trust in the good of the world, a trust enshrined by a moment I'll Editorial Consultant Bill Carpenter never forget. It was at the end of the October 15, 1969 Vietnam Moratorium in Design Washington, DC. There were maybe a hundred of us on a knoll with a clutch of Art Director Rebecca Hope Woods musicians. Somehow, we all joined in a large circle dance, large enough to ring COA Administration Turrets and then some. The green grass, the pink and blue tie-dye clothing, President Darron Collins '92 the flowing hair, the flowers, all of us together. So simple. So powerful. I was Academic Dean Kenneth Hill certain the exuberance of my generation would prevail. Administrative Dean Andrew Griffiths Associate Deans Chris Petersen From those years, too, came the environmental movement, of which René Karen Waldron Dubos, the Pulitzer Prize-winning microbiologist, humanist, and COA trustee, Dean of Admission Heather Albert-Knopp '99 Dean of Institutional Lynn Boulger was a leader. He is thought to be the author of the phrase, "think globally, act Advancement locally," for he believed that environmental issues are best handled in their Dean of Student Life Sarah Luke "unique physical, climatic, and cultural contexts." COA Board of Trustees COA listened then, and we listen still. Our experiential form of education is Timothy Bass Jay McNally '84 local by definition. Our energy studies result in siting renewables on campus. Ronald E. Beard Philip S.J. Moriarty Our investigation into the world's trash problem is echoed by our efforts to Leslie C. Brewer Phyllis Anina Moriarty Alyne Cistone Lili Pew become zero-waste. Those who study food issues know the feel of dirt as Lindsay Davies Hamilton Robinson, Jr. they pull carrots and onions from the earth. And those who study the esoteric Beth Gardiner Nadia Rosenthal Amy Yeager Geier Abby Rowe ('98) language of international treaties, especially the ones focused on climate H. Winston Holt IV Marthann Samek change, actualize their studies in the halls of United Nations negotiations. Jason W. Ingle Henry L.P. Schmelzer Philip B. Kunhardt III '77 Laura z. Stone COA's interest in not wasting our resources, in using what we have, in Nicholas Lapham Stephen Sullens living well with the land, began long before sustainability or even green Casey Mallinckrodt William N. Thorndike, Jr. Anthony Mazlish Cody van Heerden, MPhil '17 were buzzwords. Consider our community gardens, our free box, our very Linda McGillicuddy curriculum! Perhaps at the very moment when I was shyly grasping the Life Trustees Trustee Emeriti hands of strangers on that DC rise, the sages of COA-Les Brewer, Father Jim Samuel M. Hamill, Jr. David Hackett Fischer John N. Kelly William G. Foulke, Jr. Gower-were planning this college-to-be, this extraordinary, experimental, William V.P. Newlin George B.E. Hambleton environmental excursion into education; hands-on, local, and global. John Reeves Elizabeth Hodder Henry D. Sharpe, Jr. Sherry F. Huber Helen Porter Cathy L. Ramsdell 78 John Wilmerding The faculty, students, trustees, staff, and alumni of College of the Atlantic envision a world where people value creativity, intellectual achievement, and diversity of nature and human cultures. With respect and Dam Gold compassion, individuals construct meaningful lives for themselves, gain appreciation of the relationships Donna Gold, editor among all forms of life, and safeguard the heritage of future generations. COA is published biannually for the College of the Atlantic community. Please send ideas, letters, and submissions (short stories, poetry, and revisits to human ecology essays) to: Donna Gold, COA Magazine, College of the Atlantic Front cover: Frenchman Bay by Ana Maria Zabala Gomez '20. 105 Eden St, Bar Harbor, ME 04609, or dgold@coa.edu Back Cover: To create these twenty-five-foot-long lines in the sand, Melissa Relyea WWW.COA.EDU Ossanna '91 and Mary Ropp '09 joined local runner Gary Allen and some nine others at Acadia National Park's Sand Beach before dawn on January 29, 2017. The images went viral. That's Melissa walking down the last S in the bottom photo, FSC taken by Brent Richardson. Mary Ropp '09 took the wide shot on top. from sources FSC 98 COA indicates non-degree alumni by parentheses around their class year. Members of FSC COA's initial pilot program in the summer of 1971 are indicated by P'71 after their name. From the President Darron Collins '92, PhD College of the Atlantic. The school with one degree, attended. They are almost to the number brilliantly human ecology. I'm certainly not alone in getting articulate. That's something most parents of prospective queried-quite often-with questions that boil down to, students notice, and I explain that because our students What is it, exactly, that you do? are expected to play a leading role in classes and Recently I saw the answers to this question unfold on governance committees, they have great fluidity most eloquently and completely at a gathering of with speaking, with storytelling. Beyond this, the alumni, friends, and prospective students and their transdisciplinary perspective of human ecology leads families in Washington, DC. In New York, Boston, DC, San alumni to toggle adroitly between analyses and creative Francisco, Seattle, and other cities in the United States, syntheses as they tackle the complexities of the world. we periodically host Degree of Difference events. After Their jobs are rarely monolithic. friends catch up and prospective students get a lay of the Though not always in the standard sense of the term, land, I clink a glass to get the party's attention. our alumni are leaders. Whether as a midwife, lawyer, Rather than give a formal presentation, I ask alumni scientist, parent in a community, writer, or numerous in the room for a sixty-second summary of what they other pursuits, our alumni tend to shape the world are working on and how it ties back to their experience around them. They are also entrepreneurial-again, not with human ecology at COA. After almost six years as in the typical sense of the word. They make things happen president, I've attended about three dozen of these and so are often charting their own creative, variable events, and each time I've seen the audience's collective paths. Finally, they are compassionate, empathetic people jaw drop, the amazement at the diversity is that palpable. who exude a sense of caring and a dedication to making Often, the parents of prospective students expect the world a better place. to hear park ranger, natural resource management That complexity, that storytelling panache, that specialist, or environmental scientist with the EPA, and transdisciplinarity, that leadership, that entrepreneurship, indeed, there are those stories. But what we heard in DC and that compassion form the special sauce of the human was: Undersecretary of Agriculture in charge of the US ecological experience at COA and the quality of green we Forest Service, Department of Defense counter-terrorism need for a better future. In these increasingly complex specialist, senior editor at Science Magazine, teacher at a and troubled times, the sense of green cannot be the new sustainability school, National Oceanographic and special interest of the few, it must be pervasive and must Atmospheric Administration pilot, and curator at the fundamentally alter the way we walk through the world. International Spy Museum, to name just a few. Read the stories herein and look for the connective I consider it part of my job to find and explain the tissue between them. Let the individual anecdotes and thread running through those people. Most importantly, the total package be your guide to the question, What is it our alumni are not defined by their positions. It's often that COA does, anyway? And also let those same stories be fascinating work, but these individuals have dynamic points of hope in an increasingly uncertain world. backgrounds and are as complex as the college they COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 3 NEWS FROM CAMPUS BATEAU NOVEMBER at a workshop with architect Bruce BATEAU Coldham and Millard Dority, Plant scientist Susan Letcher director of campus planning, accepts COA's offer to join the faculty buildings, and public safety. in the fall of 2017. Says President Darron Collins '92, "Susan is Violinist Augustin Martz '17 COA REVIVES THE LITERARY a brilliant botanist and human presents a duet he wrote and MAGAZINE BATEAU ecologist whose mind is wide open to performed in concert with the exploring the diverse ways in which sounds of frozen Somes Pond. "I see plants weave through our lives." this gathering at a lake as a way of feeling our connectedness and our Ten of the 12 students in an strength," he says. advanced tutorial on the United Nations climate change negotiations Food Systems Working Group offers head to Marrakesh, Morocco to "The Basics of Cooking: Soups & participate in the 22nd Conference Stews," the first in a Food & Farming of Parties and the accompanying Workshop Series. Conference of Youth. FEBRUARY THE STRANGE EYES OF DR. MYES, THE SERIAL DECEMBER Folks riff on the theme Fish Out of COA's Neva Goodwin Computer Lab Water at the Thorndike Library story becomes a comfy computer lounge slam. thanks to the resourcefulness of Pamela Mitchell, information An opinion piece on college choice technology director. The space now by Darron Collins '92 appears sports a couch and chairs from a in the Washington Post, ending local salvage lot, and coffee table and with, "it's especially important for art from her attic. The paint colors? students to gain the skills that come They're named Double Click and High from engaging in conversation Speed. and dialogue with faculty and peers, in asking and responding to DORR HOSTS NATURAL COA joins hundreds of colleges complex, nuanced questions, and SCIENCE ILLUS RATOR in a petition to continue the in respectfully but appropriately Deferred Action for Childhood challenging authority." Arrivals, or DACA program. Later, College of the Atlantic's Darron Collins '92 welcomes all to campus with these words, "we are MARCH committed to fostering an inclusive, 24-HOUR nondiscriminatory, diverse, secure Angela Valenzuela '17, using the environment to learn, think, and stage name Loïca, releases her CHALLENGE grow." senior project, a full-length album, In the Shade of Her Tree. The songs February 16, 2017 reference climate change, political JANUARY violence, and the need to find one's COA EXCEEDS ITS GOAL WITH self in pain and joy. 857 DONORS, RAISING $71,700 Thorndike Library hosts "human book" Emma Burke '17. To "open" Fragmentation and Convergence, THE RISING SUN SOCIETY such books as Llamas Can Go on the senior project by Gregory Strike or You Can Heal Cows, You Can Bernard '17, is shown in the Ethel Do Anything, says Emma, "Look at H. Blum Gallery. The work explores the book (me) in the eyes for three intersections of sea, land, and seconds straight." To close the book, sky through a process combining and halt Emma's whispered tale, you photography and printmaking. need only break the stare. After a global search, visiting Some 45 people brainstorm ideas anthropologist Netta van Vliet TINY BOOKS OFFERING for renovating and expanding the accepts a full-time appointment to HOPE AND DISSENT APPEAR existing Arts and Sciences building the COA faculty. CAMPUS 4 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE NEWS MARCH ON REVOLUTION Within days of the announcement of WOMEN'S MARCH the Women's March on Washington, the two buses from Mount Desert Island to the January 21 rally were full, with many COA community HEAR OUR VOICE. members filling the seats. By bus, plane, and carpool, students, staff, faculty, alumni, and former faculty and staff populated marches throughout the world. In the Northeast, they gathered in Augusta and Portland, Maine; Concord, New Hampshire; Montpelier, Vermont; Boston, Greenfield, and Northampton, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode BEWARE OF LITTLE Island; Hartford, Connecticut; OLD LADIES WITH TIME, MONEY AND New York and Albany, New York; AMISSION Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and, of course, Washington, DC. On the West Coast, we heard from people in Bellingham, Olympia, Seattle, and Spokane, Washington; Ashland, Eugene, and Portland, UMP TOTHE Oregon; and Eureka, Los Angeles, REF Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz, California. More southerly community members demonstrated in Loreto Bay, Pensacola, and West Palm Beach, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; Phoenix, Arizona; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Austin, Texas. In the nation's center were those in Cincinnati and GET LAW Wooster, Ohio; Chicago and Urbana, Illinois; Indianapolis, Indiana; St. Paul, Minnesota; Boise, Idaho; and Crested Butte, Denver, and Durango, Colorado. That's just those we heard from-in this country. Among our further afield alumni were those joining rallies in Toronto, F Vancouver, and Victoria, Canada; San FIRED José, Costa Rica; Dublin, Ireland; and Lawe Tokyo, Japan. Photos by Felipe Fontecilla '20 and Aubrielle Hvolboll '20. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 5 NEWS Photo by Rebecca Hope Woods. WHEN LOVES COLLIDE By Donna Gold We love our trees. We also love our walkers and bicyclists. pine were gone. Some had stood for more than a century. To ensure safe travels to and from Bar Harbor for locals We will miss them, and yet I, for one, won't miss that and visitors alike, in 2011 the Maine Department of tremor of fear in my chest when I see a biker traveling Transportation began discussing widening Route 3 to the rutted, uneven road toward Bar Harbor on a shoulder "provide a safe, efficient, and aesthetically pleasing that's barely a foot wide. transportation corridor that encourages multiple uses According to head gardener Barbara Meyers '90, and maintains or enhances the historic standards the DOT has been quite collaborative on all aspects of representative of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park." the project, "as good as we could hope for." Barbara, The work of creating eleven-foot traffic lanes, with COA faculty member Isabel Mancinelli, and the DOT's wide paved shoulders and what the DOT describes as, Lawrence Johannesman are working on a replanting plan. "enhancements to pedestrian and bike safety by providing "I believe that, in time, our frontage will be even lovelier," sidewalks and a multi-use path with esplanades where says Barbara. possible, plus updates to drainage and utilities" began Before the cutting, Agafia Andreyev '19 sent out this in December 2016. By the end of February our guardian note, under the subject line Hug the Trees, "Wish the trees trees, that lovely, stately row of birch, linden, locust, a sweet farewell before they're cut down and send some maple, oak, spruce, and most notably tall European black good vibes into the air." 6 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE NEWS LEARNING BY DOING lab fellowships For a year now, full-time in summer to begin her research in the lab of like Parkinson's in Aric Rogers' lab. and ten to fifteen hours a week Vicki P. Losick as a first-year student. INBRE was created in 2001 by during the academic year, Rose Mamiko Yamazaki '18 is also the National Institutes of Health Besen-McNally '19 has been at the exploring wound healing at MDIBL, to increase undergraduate access Mount Desert Island Biological but in Sandra Rieger's lab, and to biomedical research training Laboratory, or MDIBL, peering through nerve cell regeneration in certain rural states. For more through a high-magnification and the role of the peripheral than a dozen years it has funded dissection microscope, tiny nervous system in zebrafish fins. an intensive course in molecular instruments in hand, to probe the "I am constantly learning new genetics at MDIBL, leading to abdomen of fruit flies, seeking techniques, new knowledge, and INBRE-funded work for students as to understand how their healing making mistakes," says Mamiko. summer researchers at both MDIBL process differs from ours. "It's important to know and study and The Jackson Laboratory. With Though fruit flies are only three the background to understand the the extended fellowships, students millimeters long, they share 60 significance of the research project- now have a strong pathway to percent of their DNA with humans. and that is the most challenging continue the research they began But while humans use numerous part." Senior project material? in the summer throughout the cells to heal injuries, in fruit flies, Perhaps, says Mamiko. academic year. Similar Jackson Lab says Rose, "there's one large cell that Two other fellows are studying opportunities will begin in the fall. covers the damaged area." Does this the tiny roundworm C. elegans. For "The most amazing benefit of offer possibilities for regeneration Heath Fuqua '18, it's to learn more INBRE is the opportunity to send and aging in humans? Possibly. It's about the fundamental biology of students to these world-class why, she adds, "I want to figure out stem cells. A veteran of eight years research institutions," says faculty which genes signal this alternative in the army, with service in Iraq and member Chris Petersen who has mechanism of wound healing." Afghanistan, Heath is so captivated overseen the INBRE program at COA Rose came to COA with an interest by his work in Dustin Updike's lab for ten years. in medicine and medical research. that he is planning a career as a Rose agrees, "It's pretty amazing Thanks to yearlong fellowships at the research physician specializing in the that as a student at a small college laboratory, all funded by the IDeA neuroscience of aging. Meanwhile, on an island in Maine, I have the Network of Biomedical Research Amruta Valiyaveetil '19 is exploring C. opportunity to work in such a world- Excellence, or INBRE, Rose was able elegans to learn more about diseases class laboratory." COA's academic-year fellows and their mentors at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory. From left: Heath Fuqua '18; Chris Smith, MDIBL assistant director of education; Amruta Valiyaveetil '19; Aric Rogers, MDIBL researcher; Rose Besen-McNally '19; Dustin Updike, MDIBL researcher; Mamiko Yamazaki '18; Sandra Rieger, MDIBL researcher; Jane Disney, MDIBL education director; and Vicki Losick, MDIBL researcher. Photo courtesy of MDIBL. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 7 NEWS Why Teach in Taiwan? Reflections on immersive learning By Suzanne Morse From December 2016 to March 2017, nine students from eight countries joined education faculty member Bonnie Tai in Taiwan For the first three weeks, Suzanne Morse, botany faculty member, was with the class, officially known as Human Ecology Abroad in Taiwan, or HEAT. Students studied Mandarin, explored local food systems, participated in several forms of intercultural education, including a primary school of the indigenous Rukai community, wrote travel essays and epistolary poetry, and interviewed residents about the Japanese occupation, among other independent studies. A few weeks before our class set off for Taiwan, I was as erratics seemingly tossed here and there in the last asked, Why teach in Taiwan? I come back to this question typhoon, to the mist-encircled sacred mountain of Dulan, after three weeks of living here and return to the puzzle where the sounds are as quiet as flitting butterflies, to the put forward by Elizabeth Bishop in her poem "Questions noisier foraging of macaques. of Travel." Teaching here is not the search for these new experiences, but an opportunity to reflect on the Should we have stayed at home and remarkable ways we have made meaning in our place on thought of here? this single earth-how people have weathered change Where should we be today? with conflict, innovation, or perhaps migration, how the Is it right to be watching strangers in a play possession of mediums in the Taoist temple persists with in this strangest of theatres? such hair-raising power, and how I and the Taiwanese see my home, America, which they call Mei Guo, the beautiful I bring a stranger's eye to this place and puzzle about a country. plethora of differences-from the organization of the Coming here to teach is to ponder the surprising street lined with vendors offering up noodles, oyster answers to the question of how to live life in relation to omelets, shoes, bedding, and betel nuts, to the nerve- land, ocean, and people. Coming here is to relearn not wracking, daily roar of F16s passing overhead, to the only the inevitability of death, but also the particularities broad, rough, and barren river beds with rocks as big of a lived life. 8 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE NEWS I have spent the last year reading about Taiwan: rice, wheat, orchards, pasture, and row crops in one of the politics, botany, ethnobotany, indigenous cultures, most fertile places on earth. trade, colonialism, martial law, night market foods, In bringing the poem "Questions of Travel" to a close, history, China's great famine, the Green Revolution, and Elizabeth Bishop asks, more. Slowly, a platform emerged for asking questions about meaning-making through food and place and the Is it lack of imagination that makes us come ever-changing lifeways on this island over the past four to imagined places, not just stay at home? hundred years. Reading is not enough. As I stood by rice paddies in I think our imagination is boundless, but we can never Taitung, I was overwhelmed by the colossal communal know a place without our feet on the ground, our face in energy required to grow rice intensively, and how the water, our fingers feeling the strange, black, silty soil, our steep mountains and typhoons provide the remarkable spirits shaken in confusion and conversation. We weave fertility and longevity of these systems. Having returned together the imagined and the real. We correct our path, to Maine, I am left pondering how these communal feats and the world is as rich as the tales told by Italo Calvino. of water engineering for rice production and systems This travel speaks to each of us differently; for some, it of water sharing might lead to different social norms of can feel like a coming home and to others a sense of loss helpfulness, even to "minding each other's business." or displacement. Teaching while traveling asks even more From afar, I am led to reconsider California and the of me: it commands discipline and accountability to both levees of the Central Valley upon which I have traveled home and away. In the best of circumstances, we deepen my entire lifetime. I more palpably see the skill and our understanding of human ecologies, and with these backbreaking labor of Chinese immigrants who built the new perspectives we have the chance to step into our first intricate network of embankments there, levees first fractured and shared futures, refreshed and willing. imagined in the 1850s that today protect the vast tracts of For more, visit vtaylor6.wixsite.com/heat. A rice field in Taitung on a flood plain at the base of mountains. Left: A view from the ridge of Dulan Mountain nover the Beinan River flood plain. Photos by Suzanne Morse, COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 9 Globalism A view from the Ganges By Galen Hecht '16 In 2016, Galen Hecht '16 was one of forty nationwide recipients of the annual Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, which sends college graduates on yearlong journeys in pursuit of a dream. As Galen travels to Scandinavia, Chile, India, and Nepal on his project, "Poetic Cartography: Charting People's Place in Three Great Watersheds," he is immersed in "the poetry of rivers, voyaging from headwaters towards the sea to learn about the connections that people form with place, asking how and why we humans treat natural resources the way we do, and how we can better coexist." I am in a Starbucks. water buffalo. Rivers are not just a stream of surface water that flows from snow to sea, A to B. Engaged with There is a fountain outside, the walls are glass, touting that flow is the entire plain from peak to groundwater to modernity. The only flaw is that here they don't have ocean, the entire watershed. Rivers enable life. Wi-Fi. At the counter, they subtly tell me to use the other Temperate lands, especially like those in northern conglomerate's Wi-Fi from next door. India where most annual precipitation is delivered by I am in a Starbucks. monsoons, are prone to run dry. To mitigate dry seasons, The jolt of globalism is as strong as the sea of black humans use infrastructure-dams, pipelines, canals, and aromatic brew in my cup, the first non-instant coffee other feats of engineering. The Ganges is a river full of I've had in a long while. I just came off of a few months walls and gates like most of earth's great rivers today. trekking and paddling along the Ganges River and I was Paddling is regularly interrupted to portage around really tempted. barriers. India's massive population, like most, is thirsting I am in a Starbucks, and I am thinking about my for power and water. grandmother. In India, farmers are guaranteed unlimited rights to The other day, as she was processing the topsy- groundwater by the government, all they have to pay turvy elections, she sent me an eloquent short essay. A for is the diesel to run their pumps; metering water use historian by trade, known to her grandchildren as Tita, is not a common practice. To those unaccustomed to Irene Hecht places humans in the midst of a revolution water scarcity, this may sound like an obvious right, but on the grand scale. Like the Green Revolution and the unlimited use of a limited resource is a recipe for parched Industrial Revolution before, this revolution is altering the earth. Nearly 50 percent of India's employed worked in groundwork of our species and consequently the earth. agriculture in 2013. I am glad that India tries to take care She refers to it as the Planetary Revolution. of its farmers-they are some of the most important I recall a passage from her essay: "Global corporations members of our hungry humanity-but the current have their 'homes' anywhere and everywhere. In the practice sounds like a dangerous equation to me. US we are tangled up with our anger over massive Groundwater use across India is on the rise. According corporations escaping taxes by placing their 'homes' in to India's Standing Committee on Water Resources, the best locations from a tax perspective, avoiding US 62 percent of the annual replenishing source for the business taxes. Bad behavior by old standards." country's groundwater was used in 2011, and 89 percent of that was for irrigation. In dry areas such as Haryana, The Ganges River is a home. It is a home to over 450 in the Gangetic Plain, the same committee estimates million people, hundreds of species of birds, bears, tigers, that over 130 percent of the replenishing source is being dolphins, sandflies, snakes, scorpions, E. coli, fish, grass, drawn. In many places, farms are using aquifer water 10 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Students at the Parmarth Niketan ashram in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India wash after cleaning the banks of the Ganges. Ganges at Devprayag, Uttarakhand, India. Photos by Galen Hecht '16. The confluence of the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi rivers, forming the faster than the monsoons and the seepage from the Corporations, governments, not to mention a public Ganges can restore it. that functions globally, must not only be held accountable In my home state of New Mexico, heavy aquifer and by national regulations, but by global regulations for surface water use for agriculture caused parts of our things like aquifers, forests, oceans, rivers, soil. What major river, the Rio Grande, to run dry in the 1990s. The water nourishes the produce that feeds the customers Ganges is a much more voluminous river than the Rio and employees at Starbucks in Noida? Some of it Grande, but it is not hard to imagine that in future dry undoubtedly comes from the Gangetic Plain. When seasons the surface flow will disappear into the sand. American multinationals, and multinationals in general, When I recently spoke to a Canadian official whose are responsible for people's livelihoods in India and specialty is Indian agriculture and economics, he said that around the world, what will be our planetary etiquette? policy actions in India can have a more widespread and dramatic effect than anywhere else in the world. New In a planetary context of immense wealth disparity and Mexico was able to recover after drying the Rio Grande an urgent need for conservation, could we design a global and now maintains a flow in the river by practicing water system in which multinational corporations and others conservation in urban and rural areas. With many water- who exploit resources for profit will pay to conserve saving options available, such as drip irrigation, proper them? We must equate the availability of fresh water soil development, responsible waste management, and and fresh air to the possibility of enjoying an Americano metering, there is certainly a way to live water-wise, but at Starbucks in Delhi. The practice of dealing with our how can it all be implemented and paid for? daily resources worldwide requires increasingly intricate choreography. That brings me back to my current position at Earth is called the Blue Planet, water is our essence. Starbucks. If we cannot find a way to keep track of our scarce fresh Starbucks is here in Noida, the New Okhla Industrial water and promote conservative and equitable ways Development Authority outside New Delhi, because it can of consuming it, we will run out. Not everywhere, not be, and it's just as busy and expensive as in Seattle. everyone, but some of us will run out. Some of us are In her essay, Tita questions the present role of nations already running out. as our predominant governing body and suggests that So as we revolve in this era when globalization is as we move into planetary consciousness, we must have a household term, and I am funded by a foundation effective regulatory systems for planetary behavior. to travel nearly anywhere except my home country to We have the United Nations, the World Bank, the try, try, try to understand the scope of watersheds, the International Monetary Fund, etcetera, but while a select shades of our blue, I wonder how we can savor our global few nation states and major capitalist players remain commons? What can we do to make this revolution a the powerful actors behind these institutions, we lack promising one? empowered, environmentally responsible, planetary establishments. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 13 greening THE FUTURE 14 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Ecological Hope for Challenging Times Sustainability-being green, free of At a time when higher education fossil fuels, carbon neutral, energy struggles to cross the boundaries of independent, having zero emissions- academia and figure out how to engage the words all speak to ensuring students in the real world, COA is that the planet thrives into the next already there. We were literally born to generation, though navigating the this task. Free of the divides of majors lexicon of environmental badges can and having found our identity with the be confounding. In higher education's support of the island, we are epically race for the nirvana of all things fortunate to have a strong sense of place environmental, it is easy to lose sight of from which to build. The community the goal. While the linguistics still need within which we live is our foundation to be sorted out, COA's path forward is and our wings. If the study of human clear. We have shifted away from buying ecology has taught us anything, it is offsets and returned to our roots of that we are all interconnected and COA learning through doing, engaging the does not and cannot live in a bubble. We wider community in the process. acknowledge that we are both dedicated and beholden to our neighbors, that COA was founded by a small group their success is ours, and vice versa. of educators and Mount Desert These relationships do more than make Island residents on the principle of our school unique; they educate our participatory, interdisciplinary learning students. that explored the interactions between humans and their environment. It was Engaging in the community and a vision of education that valued a working on real-world problems with varied and intermingled approach to people from a variety of social and this exploration from every conceivable political viewpoints provides invaluable perspective, and encouraged experience to students. Understanding interactions beyond campus. In the first-hand the challenges and decades that followed, climate change opportunities for residents, business and its human, social, environmental, owners, or the nonprofit sector gives economic, and political impacts brought students insight into the varied and the need for understanding our world multi-faceted constraints that make through a multi dimensional lens into progress possible. In the face of walls sharp relief. going up at the federal level, community becomes even more vital. The founders also wanted COA to integrate with and help rejuvenate the Through education and experience, local economy, creating an enduring and students, faculty, staff, and the dynamic relationship that has grown world beyond campus gain a deeper over the pastforty years. Our island is understanding of the issues and very much a part of who we are, be it develop skills and perspective to create exploring Acadia National Park, working solutions. with area businesses and residents, or engaging in research that complements Anna Demeo, COA lecturer and Director and supports the commercial and of Energy Education and Management recreational uses of our Atlantic coast. Frenchman Bay sunset taken from the COA pier. Photo by Ana María Zabala Gómez '20. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 15 Kali Lamont '18 seals a window insert destined for a member of the Mount Desert Island community. She is volunteering with the nonprofit organization WindowDressers. Photo by Zakary Kendall '17. Community As Classroom COA's Energy Outreach By Eloise Schultz '16 The light is fading fast on Mt. Desert Street as I let Walking down the hall, I find our album playing on myself into the unlocked side door of the Bar Harbor the boombox and Tony in deep contemplation of a roll of Congregational Church. I'm here with WindowDressers, plastic wrap. Also in the room are Pastor Rob Benson and a Rockland-based nonprofit that works with volunteers two eighth graders from the Conners Emerson School. to construct insulating window inserts for Maine The brightly lit room is a jumble of wooden frames and communities. Though the front hall and chapel are boxes, with five folding tables piled high with sealing tape deserted, familiar strains of folk music filter up the and heat-shrink plastic. Tony greets me enthusiastically basement steps. I'm in the right place. and then, gesturing to the workstation in front of him, Today's "community build" was organized by Zak asks, "What do you think about the size of this sheeting?" Kendall '17, my friend and bandmate in the folk group I agree that it's probably big enough for the large frame GoldenOak, and Tony St. Denis, a local boatbuilder who that he has propped against the side of the table. I hope represents WindowDressers in Bar Harbor. The three of so, anyway-l've never done this before. us first met at a GoldenOak show and then again at the After the formalities, I'm handed a roll of packing tape Common Ground Fair, which is where Tony enlisted us as and a pair of scissors, and instructed to seal the edges of volunteers. the window insert before a final layer of padding is added. 16 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE As the afternoon darkens to evening, people filter in and Education first out of the church basement, greeting each other and COA's work with the community is also an extension of diving into the work. Another COA volunteer, energy work- the effort to navigate between the college's role as a study student Kali Lamont '18, joins my station. I show leader in sustainable strategies and its responsibilities as her how to finish the seal by sliding a finger along the a functioning institution with consumptive habits. "Other window's edge before heading on to discover what comes schools are getting close to complete dependence on next. The room moves in a rhythm: Learn one, make one, renewable resources. That's a huge feat because colleges teach one. Pass it on. are incredibly visible," notes Zak. But, he adds, "they're While I work, I notice that each window insert is buying it from elsewhere, like wind farms," or investing in labeled with the name and address of its recipient. Some renewable projects to earn carbon offsets-as COA once are people I know from around the island, and I find did. Additionally, many other schools have hired external myself thinking of them as I put the finishing touches on consultants to research and advise their decisions, each frame. The short-term solution is the product we're whereas COA is committed to integrating our sustainable making: reusable inserts that significantly reduce heat efforts with our education so that student-led initiatives loss through older windows. But the long-term solution and class projects are the driving force behind these is the process: building our relationships with each other changes. and responding to the needs of the community. We are In 2007, COA made a global splash by becoming not exactly experts; we are just people who happen to live the first carbon-neutral college in the nation, reducing here, learning to live together. and avoiding the emissions it could, and purchasing offsets for the rest. But by 2013, COA had a new plan. Community energy "We had bought carbon offsets and divested from fossil At the dinner break, Rob orders a pizza and we clear fuels, but we didn't actually change things on campus, a space by the kitchen to sit and talk. I ask Zak how he we just changed who we invested our money in," says came to organize this event with Tony. Their connection Zak. Rather than buying offsets, which helps the global formed through his position as an energy fellow at market through sustainable investments, COA altered its COA's Community Energy Center, he says. The CEC was approach to achieving energy independence, "veering created to connect COA's sustainability and renewable more toward the idea of producing all of our energy on energy efforts to our surrounding communities, and to campus, whether in the form of electrons or wood pellets ensure the continuation of these efforts from one class, or heat pumps to heat our spaces." independent study, or internship to another, "with the implication that we could work with the community and Energy framework aid them in their projects," says Zak. For students, the CEC In 2013, COA's All College Meeting ratified the energy can serve as laboratory, sounding board, and classroom. framework created by the Campus Committee for In exchange, student enthusiasm is channeled into Sustainability. The framework foregrounds education ongoing initiatives from which the community benefits. as a means to both improve school-wide environmental The event with WindowDressers, Zak continues, is a literacy and facilitate the essential planning, perfect example of the reciprocal relationships the CEC implementation, and analysis of the college's efforts to hopes to facilitate. And on campus, some COA students be free from fossil fuels by 2030. Under these guidelines, are now working with B&G carpenter John Barnes to build says Zak, "The most important part of developing any kind reusable window inserts for COA's draftier buildings. of project is student input, education, and involvement. Founded in 2016, the CEC is currently managed by We hold classes to identify issues, come up with projects, Andrea Russell, MPhil '17. After spending a term with COA and develop solutions that fit our systems." As a result, faculty and students on the energy-independent island of students learn through experience to think practically Samsø, Denmark, Andrea returned to secure home energy and to see obstacles as resources. Lisa Bjerke '13, MPhil audits for six MDI residents. "Having been a part of the '17, whose focus has been on encouraging others to view MDI community since 2001, doing this community work waste as "discarded resources," adds that "COA can't buy was like a homecoming for me," Andrea says. "Localism itself out of this situation, just like the world can't buy is very strong here. People whose families are from MDI itself out of this situation." The college's new framework, hold a unique sway over the community at large. If we can she says, is grounded in the conviction that "students get them excited about local renewable energy, we have have to first learn about the process of change-making a chance to truly change the energy infrastructure on the before they can go out into the world and create more island as a whole. Their pride in MDI can be the driving change." By placing projects in the hands of students, COA force." Andrea's perspective demonstrates a fundamental puts human ecology to task-and demonstrates our trust premise behind the CEC's work: it's essential that that the learning process is the living process. solutions be both envisioned and carried out from within "We're going to come up with rough solutions first," a community. continues Lisa, "and through that process learn how to COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 17 come up with better ones." In COA's new strategy, process is essential. Former CEC energy fellow Spencer Gray '17 has focused on rooftop solar and electric vehicles. He finds that classes in this vein, "are almost treated like a business, and you have to bring a proposal to the people who will be funding it. When I'm working with businesses in town, and providing counseling for them, it's a practical application." Students actualize their education through application; in turn, islanders benefit from the students' work. The CEC creates the framework for this authentic and reciprocal learning process: helping community members transition toward renewable energy sources while aiding organizations like the CEC in developing statewide energy solutions. Real people; Real issues Zak recently completed his internship with MDI Clean Energy Partners (MDI CEP), a local nonprofit founded by William Osborn and Steve Katona, former COA president. Willy and Steve collaborated with Anna Demeo, COA lecturer and director of energy education and management, to launch the CEC, which is funded by grants, including one from the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Energy for America program. One of Zak's internship responsibilities at MDI CEP was to research community solar models-cooperatively owned solar arrays-tailor them to fit Maine policies, and publish his findings online for others to access. For Mainers who don't own their homes, community solar makes the still in the planning stages, he talked about land-use policies: "It all depends on conversion to renewable energy how the holder of the easement interprets the language. Putting solar panels sources more cost-effective and thus in a field is not like digging a new oil well, but depending on how you read the attainable, building networks within language, is it utilizing a resource, or building a new building?" Other factors communities, since consumers don't include "zoning setbacks, local infrastructure-whether the utility system can necessarily need to be located where handle the electricity-and neighbors." Zak and Spencer both emphasize that the energy is generated. developing the models isn't just about crunching numbers; you have to be able During his internship, Spencer to relate to individual stakeholders and to anticipate their needs and concerns. worked on a proposal to construct Beyond technology and technique, students are learning to navigate the a community solar array at Beech human side of sustainability. When you're working "with real people and Hill Farm. When asked about the real issues," as Zak says, the stakes are higher. These risks, however, are challenges to the project, which is the conditions through which the community itself becomes a classroom. 18 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Together, Ana Zabala '20, left, and Gillian Welch 19, right, stretch plastic over the frame of a window insert to create a clear, more energy- ficient window. Photo by Zakary Kendall '17. The connections built through the CEC will enable us to re-envision what's possible and not possible for the "The most important community as a whole. And in the process, we become empowered within a situation that can otherwise feel part of developing any largely out of our control. For more, visit coa.edu/cec. kind of project is student *** input, education, and Eloise Schultz '16 recently completed her teaching involvement." certification in English language arts. She plays trumpet in the band GoldenOak and is the oral history and youth outreach intern at the MDI Historical Society. Zak Kendall '17 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 19 Growing Greener One human ecologist at a time When Jason Mark, editor-in-chief of Sierra, chose COA as the top "cool school," he used the words by a landslide. Clearly, Sierra recognized the multitude of approaches COA uses to become a more savvy, environmentally educated campus. There are literally hundreds of ways we seek to walk our talk, from light switches and trash choices to investments and courses. Here are a few. For more, visit the Environmental Commitment section under About COA at coa.edu. Energy Education Waste Begone COA's sustainable efforts are In just two years, COA's trash undertaken by students. They've plunged by nearly 50%. At the sited and installed solar panels, college's third annual waste audit- found ways to limit the energy pioneered by Lisa Bjerke '13, MPhil spent on irrigation pumping at '17-a week's worth of trash was Beech Hill Farm, and assessed weighed and counted. Only 30%, campus heating needs and heating Climate Shake 577 pounds, was landfill-bound, alternatives, like investigating heat down from 1,115 pounds in the pump technology for utilizing the Sergio Cahueque 17.was first audit. How? Attention. Better warmth of the campus kitchen invited to join former UN buying and reusing practices. Better to warm domestic hot water. All Secretary General Ban communication of how and where furthering our practice of learning Ki-moon at a celebration for to recycle. And many more bins for by doing. the Paris climate agreement. reusing and recycling. Thoreau Workshops Lobbying, messaging, listening, and organizing are essential in advocating for justice and the environment. Once each term, COA holds daylong workshops funded by the Thoreau Foundation Harvest Sharing for students to learn and practice Trash to Treasure these skills. This year, presenters Some 70 low-income families Chellie Pingree '79, Lauren Nutter Need shoes? Guitar? A slinky ate organic produce in 2016, '10, Emily Postman '11, and dress for a party? The Free courtesy of Share the Harvest, Anjali Appadurai '12 shared their Box, chock full of pre-used run by COA students and experiences and expertise with goods, is about as olc as the farmers. current students. college. 20 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Lights Out "WTF!" Enter a room, the lights go on. DON'T GET "Where's the finance!" protesters Leave, an electronic sensor cried at the 2016 UNFCCC. Speaking turns them off. It's standard STUCK ON to Amy Goodman ('80) of Democracy environmental design. But architect DRY LAND. Now! Aneesa Khan '17 elaborated. Bruce Coldham didn't need sensors Of the expected $100 billion from for the rooms of the super-insulated the US to help developing nations Kathryn W. Davis Residence Village. handle climate change, the UN "COA has a uniquely reliable Poster Power received less than $34 billion, she conservation mentality. Why leave told Amy, adding, "We spent $13 the lights on for a pre-set period In Dru Colbert's design course, trillion to bail the banks out during when the COA human computer is students learn visual problem- the financial crisis-Where's the programmed for immediate switch- solving by creating posters for equity? Where's the justice?" off? This was a first for us." local groups. Fearsome Fleece Each time we launder our warm, convenient fleece jackets, says Abigail Barrows, MPhil '17, bits of plastic wash off the fabric, headed for the ocean. Every ocean. While all fabric sheds, plastic fibers are forever. Analyzing Maine shellfish- Community Garden lobsters, mussels, oysters-Abby found a concerning level of Edible flowers, veggies, and microplastics in the tissues. She's herbs, the garden is both already used these facts to help lab and classroom, As old achieve plastic reduction legislation as COA-and with plots for in the state. neighbors. Sustainable Strategies Divested Entrepreneurs can change It was swift. Students met with the world, and students in Jay Andy Griffiths, administrative Friedlander's Sustainable Strategies dean, to divest of fossil fuel- class are assisting them, linking related stocks, then visited the with local breweries, restaurants, trustee investment committee. A and other businesses, asking hard meeting or two later, the board questions. Ultimately the students [Re]Produce agreed. That was a Saturday. By offer innovative and often quite Tuesday, COA was divested. Said valuable suggestions that can A business plan to limit farm Lucas Burdick '15, beyond moral improve the business' social and waste by freezing surplus, and political justice, "divesting was environmental impacts-while unwanted produce shared first reinvesting and didn't mean we had not forgetting that all-important prize at the 2016 Maine Food to lose any money, or raise anyone's bottom line. System Innovation Challenge. tuition." COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 21 Away Big Stuff On a cold January morning, COA awoke to this email note: "If you have anything that you want to be removed or disposed of but don't know how because of its size, material, or type of product, please So ar-Electric Stations send a stuff-removal request to Leavings to Leaves bg-stuffremoval@coa.edu so that Campus and farm solar- B&G [buildings and grounds] can Food scraps, napkins grass electric stations enable help you with it." Mattresses. clippings-COA omposts electric vehicles-visitors Lumber. Other goods. As much as what it can to grow next year's locals, ours-nearly fossil fuel- possible COA seeks to repurpose veggies and flower free travel. what comes in. Farm Schooling Systemic Design Conners Emerson students who Waiting to shower? In the Kathryn had never seen kohlrabi now W. Davis Residence Village, your love its crunch and sweet taste, hot water has been heated by having harvested, chopped, even locally sourced wood pellets and fermented it. They also learned how prewarmed from the previous next year's apple comes from right shower. Later, the greywater helps where this year's is picked, along to irrigate COA's award-winning with lessons in soil science, math, landscape. Gotta go? In the KWD English, and social studies, thanks Residence Village and the Deering to weekly 70-minute classes taught Common Community Center the by COA students-who also helped toilets are composting, the urinals the school with greenhouses and waterless. And a foot of insulation composting. lowers the heating need. Investor Students Members of the student investment fund accentuate the positive as they manage some $15,000 of COA investments with the caveat that their worth must be trackable. Students apply enhanced BYO M environmental, social, and Peep! Peep! governance screens to better align Going to an Open Mic? their investments with COA values. Only Maine-raised meat from Farm feast? Bring Your Own Meetings are a time for learning, humane, free-range pastures Utensils! Longing for some dialog, and action related to the on the menu, thank you. Often java? BYO Mug or deposit $1. college's sustainable goals. our farms are the source! 22 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Clean & Green Solar Power Russell Holway, head custodian, More than 750 panels on student finds the best products- residences, the pottery building, choosing peroxide over bleach, and the farms-many installed experimenting with waxed paper by students in Anna Demeo's instead of plastic bags, buying Practicum in Renewable Energy Green Seal-certified cleaning course-provide about 11% of products, and low-VOC paint, Pushing Pedals COA's energy needs. Thanks to educating local distributors on these land-based solar collectors, health and toxicity. "I'm still Need a bike? Borrow one we now can consider our research learning-I continue to find through COA's bike share stations on Great Duck Island and greener products," he says. He's program. For an hour, a day- Mount Desert Rock to be net-zero now learning even more, as COA's or a term Tools are available, for electricity. discarded resources king. too. Glean Queen Apples, berries, chard, carrots, kale, squash-1.5 tons or 18,658 servings of excess or aesthetically unusual PaRKin produce from Beech Hill Farm- went to food pantries, community kitchens, and the food insecure, thanks to COA's Gleaning Queen Java Morgan Heckerd '18 (pictured) and Hannah Semler '06 of Healthy Only fair trade coffee is Acadia, which gathered and served on campus. And while distributed 65,000 pounds of food sparkling water is around from regional fields. bottled water is neither ol nor distributed. Not since 2010 Town Planning Join Up! When Isabel Mancinelli and Gordon COA committees and student Longsworth '91 teach Land Use organizations make many of Planning, students also get a lesson the decisions that guide us. In in public commitment. Surrounding addition to All College Meeting, communities ask for help and the where students, faculty, and staff class goes at it-from the island gather to discuss policies and to Ellsworth, from creating zoning other matters, there's the Campus assessments to offering stormwater Earth Day Committee on Sustainability, drainage plans, or identifying Council on Foreign Affairs, [Earth], cycling and pedestrian routes. It's COA's special holiday- Food Group, Student Framework for Students serve as they learn, celebrated with a community Environmental and Social Justice, benefitting themselves and our fair, and discussions, displays, and the Zero Waste Club-to name communities. dance, drumming, and more. but a few. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 23 Changing the Rules: Cooperatives, Institutions, and Economics A discussion of possibilities with Davis Taylor Interviewed by Andrea Lepcio '79 Davis Taylor, faculty member in economics, sees worker-owned cooperatives as contributing to a future economy with more sustainable goals. He's been exploring the possibilities recently, so we asked Andrea Lepcio '79 to spend some time talking with him about cooperatives and the economic institutions that might promote them. Andrea Lepcio '79: Davis, can you talk about what sustainability community is largely clueless of this; they possibilities worker-owned cooperatives can open up? seem to think co-ops are a groovy thing that are just going Davis Taylor: I'm on the board of the Cooperative to happen. The research I'm doing now seeks to rectify Development Institute, where Rob Brown ('91) works. We this disconnect by clarifying the relationship between co- wrote the report, Cooperatives Build a Better Maine: New ops and sustainability. If we're going to have more co-ops, Ideas on Economic and Community Development (maine. there needs to be cultural changes, policy changes. If we coop). We wrote it prior to the elections but now we can harness the sustainability world in the interest of the feel it's even more relevant. While there are complex co-op world, we could get a lot further. reasons why Trump won, to say it has nothing to do with economic inequality is ignoring the obvious. His election Andrea: Define sustainability. really frames the question of how can we begin to restore Davis: I don't have a single definition-the standard one economic well-being to working-class Americans. is that future generations are at least as well-off as we are. Another is that the total amount of capital-financial, Andrea: Can we? built, natural, and human-is increasing or not declining. Davis: Well, co-ops, spreading ownership of the economy, That involves assumptions about substitutability between just make so much sense. It's more than just getting a natural capital-the planet's basic assets, from bedrock share of profits. While people who work for co-ops don't to air-and, for example, human capital. We have to have get rich, there's more pride in working, more sense of enough natural capital to keep the planet running. A control over one's life, and co-ops return the social to the third definition treats sustainability as political discourse. work environment. You're countering Marx's accusation Something is sustainable when people have a voice in that selling labor alienates people from the product, from their future through the political process. Theoretically, their coworkers. Studies show that what motivates people all three of these would produce the same results, but at work is not salary, it's the work and social interactions, there's no consensus. I'm pretty pessimistic about and making it engaging-so being able to design your achieving sustainability as many conceive it. own work, find meaning in it, and connecting with others What I tend to focus on now is that sustainability is is what makes work valuable. From a human ecological far from dichotomous; it's not either we're sustainable, or perspective, I think reintegrating social life with work we're not sustainable. We can think about this a bit more life is critical and will cause us to de-emphasize simply concretely in the context of climate change. It's not like earning money. That relates to sustainability because there will or will not be climate change, or that less than there's plenty of evidence that our consumption patterns a two-degree increase in global temperatures will be are tied to our work patterns. People who have satisfying okay, and greater than two degrees will be disastrous. work are less likely to feel the need to spend a lot of And there is no single we who can avoid climate change money to project their identity. If we're going to consume if we do the right things. It's a spectrum: there are some less, we have to make work better. people being seriously hurt by climate change right now, some who are moderately hurt, and those who will Andrea: I love that. probably never be hurt, even if we roast ourselves and Davis: When researchers and activists imagine a seriously damage our environment and economy. This sustainable world, they envision a lot of co-ops. Social last group has the resources to build higher seawalls, get activists say there is no justice without control and there more air conditioning, withstand more severe storms, is no control without ownership. But the "sustainability etcetera. Instead of dichotomizing things as sustainable world" doesn't talk much about how we're going to get or unsustainable, I think it is more accurate to recognize there. People who work with co-ops know it's not easy that we're changing the condition of the world, and many to start or run a worker-owned business. I think the people are going to be impacted. Our humanity compels 24 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE us to steer change toward more just conditions in which health, leading to negative effects on human and natural people are less vulnerable and freer to be fully human. communities. It's not that the sustainability community That's where my research is heading. wants to eliminate private property, they just see a need for balance in the institutions regarding property rights. Andrea: Are you pessimistic because of climate or are you pessimistic in general? Andrea: And what institutions would encourage a Davis: We seem to be incapable of steering toward cooperative economy? anything approximating sustainability. This is where the Davis: An example is that worker-owned businesses theory known as new institutional economics comes in- govern themselves under a one worker, one vote rule; this institutions being the rules of the game, socially, culturally, flies in the face of the more familiar capitalistic notion and economically. There are formal institutions like laws that votes are dependent on how much capital investment and constitutions and contracts, and informal institutions people have in the business. Arguments can be made for that are norms of behavior, expectations-soft squishy either, it depends on whether you think people or capital things like that. are more important in the operation of a business. There are some businesses that are very capital-intensive, such Andrea: In the age of Trump, it seems there are no norms as auto factories; they should probably stay investor- of behavior. owned and controlled. But returning to my arguments Davis: Trump is making me regarding the quality of grapple with this because, work, we would benefit theoretically, institutional In the US, we have very good greatly from more people- change is supposed to centered businesses that happen slowly. But a better institutions for capitalistic prioritize good work, while way to describe the election growth, but now we're deciding still giving capital a normal is that over the past thirty return. To do that, people years, tensions built up we want sustainability. need to see the idea of one around the increasing The proper institutions for worker, one vote as nothing economic inequality in the out of the ordinary. United States, but there sustainability are significantly was very little institutional different from the ones for Andrea: The idea of a worker change. All of a sudden co-op is still new- something snapped, Trump capitalistic growth. Davis: A lot of institutional was elected, and now change centers around we've got some significant changing what people institutional change perceive as possible happening. and normal. In our current culture, we lionize the In the context of sustainability, the rules of the game- wealthy investors of Wall Street, while the possibilities the institutions in the economy-determine economic surrounding worker ownership remain largely unknown. outcomes. There are countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin But there's plenty of evidence that worker-owned America with institutional structures that absolutely businesses can be very successful. In many ways, we just inhibit their economic growth. Institutions have to fit into have to get the word out. society, or more accurately, societies reflect institutions. I should add that it was COA students that led me to In the US, we have very good institutions for capitalistic focus on institutions. They appreciated the models of growth, but now we're deciding we want sustainability. neoclassic economics, but they recognized that there were The proper institutions for sustainability are significantly all kinds of things missing. I found myself talking about different from the ones for capitalistic growth. history, about the way businesses are structured, about all these things that turn out to be highly institutional. Andrea: So what institutions inhibit sustainability? I finally came across new institutional economics and I Davis: Well, for example, strict private property rights are realized this is the missing piece. Neoclassical economics an institutional arrangement that are great for economic ignores transaction costs, ignores missing information, growth because people invest more in property that they assumes everyone has perfect information and all know can't be taken away from them, and whose rights transactions are costless. New institutional economics of use are almost unlimited. This high level of investment says if you include information costs and transaction leads to greater productivity and economic growth. costs, then all of a sudden the rules matter immensely, But from a sustainability perspective, what people do just as they do for cooperatives, and for sustainability. with their property can impact local or global ecological COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 25 Enriching the Earth Abe Noe-Hays '00 and his Rich Earth Institute By Marina Garland '12 Dean Hamilton, collaborating farmer, and Abe Noe-Hays '00 (in blue shir apply 1,000 gallons of sanitized urine per acre to a test plot on Dean's hayfield in Brattleboro, Vermont. 26 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE "How long would it take my family of four to save enough urine to fertilize our hayfield?" I ask fellow alumnus Abe Noe-Hays '00. He raises his eyebrows. "It's five acres, you said? You're going to need some friends." Abe has many friends, or rather, participants, donating their nutrient-rich urine to his projects. More than one hundred participants, in fact, who generate over five thousand gallons of urine each year to be used in fertilizing trials on the hayfields of two local farms near his home in Brattleboro, Vermont. As a farmer with a hayfield that needs a little TLC, I am duly impressed by the photographs he shows me of the experiment; the swaths without urine look like my tired hayfield, while the strips with urine fertilizer grow lush and green. "Every day, one person's urine contains enough nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to grow the wheat for a loaf of bread. And a lot of trace nutrients too," Abe tells me. It's enough to make me think again about the valuable nutrients my family is flushing away. Then again, maybe I'm an easy person to convince. After all, I spent my four years at COA using facilities installed by Abe himself. Human ecology of waste wasn't completely satisfied. "Because of rules restricting Abe has been applying human ecology to composting its use, which vary from state to state, it becomes really and human waste diversion since his early days at COA. difficult to use the compost beneficially. It felt like I was Eight years before he installed the composting toilets in providing toilets, but not cycling nutrients." In 2011, Abe the Kathryn W. Davis Residence Village, he piloted the received an enthusiastic call from fellow Brattleboro idea with homemade commodes in the handicap stalls of resident Kim Nace, whose master's thesis in 1989 the Thorndike Library. He had become interested in the centered on composting toilets. That connection sparked sources of soil fertility while working at Beech Hill Farm a collaboration that soon became the Rich Earth Institute, and studying agroecology. "Where does it all come from which today employs six people and works on the myriad and how does it get renewed?" he wondered. questions surrounding the best methods for and uses of "I realized that the nutrients were sort of on a one- urine recycling. way track. We would recycle them on the farm-we composted everything, used cover crops-but when Collection mechanics that fertility [the produce] leaves the farm, it ends up Kim gives me the full tour of her own home system, on someone's plate, then in someone's toilet." So with starting with the normal-looking bathroom with a permission from COA's buildings and grounds, a carefully varnished wooden box where a toilet would be. The engineered compost bin with twenty-seven sensors, and toilet seat would be normal too, except for a molded the Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins as assurance plastic divider that shunts urine to a separate receptacle for skeptics-Look, it won't smell!-Abe sought to achieve down cellar. Feces and toilet paper go down the back, high-temperature composting on a home scale. followed by a scoop of sweet-smelling wood shavings. "I was afraid my toilets weren't going to get enough We head next to the basement where three rectangular business," Abe tells me with a chuckle. But the opposite recycling bins-the sort of bin you might see on a trash was true; he had to shut them down for most of the week pick-up day-sit on wheels. The lids, however, have because he was on track to collect more "donations" been modified. One is hooked up to a flexible plastic than would fit in his compost bin. The experiment hood sealed to a pipe coming through the ceiling above. was a success, a perfect senior project for a student These bins are for solid waste, and they are on a simple whose other projects included an independent study rotation. It takes six months for the first to fill up. By the on vermiculture, or worm composting, and being the time the third bin is full, the first is over a year old and "compost Kaiser," in charge of all the Take-A-Break food has decomposed into dry compost. And the urine? Kim waste. His senior project, he says, "got me hooked on points to a pipe that comes down through the ceiling, composting. It was human ecology. It was psychology. It leads underground, and then to their side yard where a was biology. There was physics and chemistry. I learned a 275-gallon plastic tank surrounded by insulated concrete lot about thermodynamics-it engaged so many different is buried. It takes six to eight months for her family of ways of thinking and angles of looking at things, and a three (who work from home) to fill it. lot of my different abilities. So I finished at COA saying, Another such tank resides above-ground at a nearby alright, I guess I'm in the composting toilet business!" urine depot, where participating families bring urine in With a grin he adds, "It was a seamless transition." He five-gallon, rectangular plastic jugs to a pump-out station started by fixing his parents' composting toilet and kept beside the tank. These small jugs allow participants going, his passion and expertise naturally developing into who do not have built-in waste diversion systems in his business, Full Circle Composting Consulting. But he their homes (or a garden or farm on which to use their COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 27 nutrients) to donate their urine to the Rich Earth Institute. the Heifers. Users find them much more pleasant and I eye these five-gallon "cubies," as they are called, a bit ecologically friendly than a plastic box full of liquid, blue, skeptically. Lacking the Y chromosome, I have a hard perfumey chemicals. time imagining how to use them. I needn't worry. While a funnel allows the cubie to function as a stand-alone Beyond farming urinal, those who prefer to sit can fit a nifty insert called But if you're not a farmer in need of fertilizer, why a "nun's cap" into their flush toilets. This receptacle worry about what you flush away? Abe and Kim offer has a spout that makes it easy to pour the contents some compelling facts, noting that there's no real into the cubie after each use. Vinegar is added to each away in flushing. In her own home, Kim estimates that fresh cubie to reduce odor and lock up nutrients. In she saves 12,800 gallons of water each year just by fact, Abe says that an odor coming from your compost eschewing the flush toilet. That's especially attractive or composting toilet means nutrients are escaping. The after a dry Vermont summer in which many reliable Rich Earth Institute has brought portable urine collecting springs went dry. But even in a wet year, it's less water toilets to large festivals such as Brattleboro's Strolling of for the wastewater treatment plant to process, and, NSTITUTE CHEARTH RICHEARTH CLOSING THE FOOD NUTRIENT CYCLE Abe Noe-Hays '00, research director, and Kim Nace, executive CLOSING TT THE FOOD NUTRIENT CYCLE director, are co-founders of the Rich Earth Institute. Photos courtesy of the Rich Earth Institute. 28 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE more importantly, diverts most of her home's nutrients with COA bookmarked. I thought, Wow, this is so cool, / away from the sewer system. Getting those nutrients to can't wait to read the rest of the book! I thought the whole a farm keeps them out of waterways, where discharge thing was going to be full of schools like COA." Fresh from from water treatment plants can be a substantial culprit completing the Appalachian Trail, "I felt pretty grown- in nutrient pollution and eutrophication. It's the urine, up and ready to tackle the next thing. COA was a place Abe explains, that contains most of the nutrients in where I could pursue the science that I was passionate human waste, a fact that surprises most people. "So if about but have it incorporated with everything else I you're looking to recycle nutrients, and you're thinking took. So I also took literature and philosophy and I loved about starting with number one or number two, urine is how when I sat down to write papers often there'd be the one to start with." Partly for economic reasons, the elements of all of my classes in those papers. At first it felt town of Brattleboro is considering teaming up with the like cheating, and then I realized, no, it was working!" Rich Earth Institute to use urine diversion, rather than Faculty members "Suzanne Morse and John Anderson costly treatment upgrades, to meet new, more stringent were really influential in my course of studies," Abe pollution requirements. continues, "Suzanne got me turned onto agroecology and In Sweden, says Abe, urine diversion is encouraged excited about all of the potentials for more sustainable by the government because of the environmental agriculture systems. And when I was trying to figure out benefits. "The World Health Organization says that pure what my senior project would be, it was John who said, urine collected at home is safe to use immediately as You're into all this composting, why not do composting fertilizer. If you're using it on raw crops, wait a month toilets? That's what got me going in this direction. before harvesting them. If it's urine collected beyond "It's exciting to be doing this work that I love doing. the household level, store it for at least a month at room I feel so lucky that it's a total progression from my temperature." The United States, however, does not undergrad studies to my senior project, and now to this yet have regulations regarding urine diversion, so the work that I love. I'm a research director with a BA! And Rich Earth Institute's efforts are currently lumped in it works because it's a field where the cutting edge is with wastewater treatment plants. As such, they must a lot of hands-on stuff that takes a human ecologist to pasteurize the urine before applying it. "We put it on do. We have legal and permitting stuff, we have human hayfields because we wanted to start the project in a way relationships, we have agriculture, chemistry. I do a lot of that didn't stir up too many people's anxieties. We've hands-on, applied, quantitative experimentation that's since done trials on vegetables, but psychologically well, right out of my thesis. It's just so engaging to have that there are plenty of hayfields!" many facets to the work. And I get to tinker! I've always The Rich Earth Institute recently collaborated with loved to tinker." Many specialized partners "have a piece the University of Michigan on a two-year study seeking of it, and they interface into this project in a great way, evidence of pharmaceuticals and associated metabolites there's a lot of synergy. But we're this hub, and I feel like in vegetable crops fertilized with urine. "We were looking the human ecological approach is what makes it possible." at the soil, the crops that were grown in the soil, and the soil water." The study used urine from their portable As I bundle up for the cold outdoors, one last question urinals and from permanent urinals at a major rest area occurs to me. "Can I make a donation?" in eastern Massachusetts, guaranteeing a large and diverse sample size. The most prevalent compound? For more on the work of Abe Noe-Hays '00 and the Rich Earth Caffeine. Followed by acetaminophen-Tylenol. But even Institute visit richearthinstitute.org. as the most abundant drug by far in urine, caffeine was at such low levels in the lettuce that one would have to eat a whole salad from the study plot every day for two thousand years to accrue as much caffeine as is in a single Marina Garland '12 lives and works in Weathersfield, cup of coffee. Vermont on a small, mostly subsistence, intergenerational farm, where she and her husband, Hank, tend gardens, COA beginnings orchards, sheep, chickens, and bees. Seasonal work adds Our conversation circles back to COA, and then, of course, pruning, grafting, cider making, sugaring, haying on to human ecology. Reflecting back to what he loved about neighboring farms, and teaching natural history at the COA, Abe recalls, "When I was starting to think about local elementary school-work in which human ecology is, colleges, a friend gave me a copy of the Princeton Review of course, ever-present. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 29 In Their Own Words Alumni reflect on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Collected and Edited by Marni Berger '09 Since 2005, College of the Atlantic students have attended the annual Conference of Parties, or COPs, to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UNFCCC. By 2006, some COA students were shaping their entire fall term around these meetings, taking classes and full-term residencies to pore over diplomatic language and investigate national histories and international treaties with Doreen Stabinsky, faculty member in global environmental policy, or Ken Cline, faculty member in law and policy, sometimes with both. Whether the students have become international negotiators as Juan Pablo Hoffmaister '07 was for a time, or farmers like Tara Allen '15, the immersion in international treaty-making has been formative, even life-changing. Negotiating for the G-77 in 2011, Juan Hoffmaister '07, seated, second from right, consults on national adaptation plans with Robert Owen-Jones, chair of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation and member of the Australian delegation. Photo courtesy of IISD ENB. 30 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Juan Pablo Hoffmaister '07: International Policy Specialist Juan Pablo Hoffmaister '07 and classmate Jessica Glynn '06 international relations, loss and damage. This is more were instrumental in creating the very first delegation COA than just responding to impacts but actually addressing sent to the UNFCCC. This was the Montreal COP 11 of 2005. those impacts that are too big to be resolved, starting Already Juan was a leader, having been elected as one of from understanding the risks, to taking a more proactive fourteen youth advisors to the United Nations Environment approach to addressing them. Through that work, I Programme, or UNEP, in September 2005. Following his was the lead negotiator for the Warsaw International graduation from COA, Juan received a Watson fellowship to Mechanism of Loss and Damage that the UN launched study how communities around the world were adapting to in 2013. It now does work ranging from assessing extreme weather changes. After completing a master's at these impacts, to more specific issues, like applying the Stockholm Resilience Centre in Sweden, Juan went on to financial incentives to addressing risk, or trying to better serve as a lead negotiator on climate change, first for Bolivia coordinate humanitarian responses to some of the major under the administration of Evo Morales, then for the G-77, droughts and disasters worldwide. a coalition of 134 developing nations that jointly promote The work that we do at the Green Climate Fund is their interests at UN multilateral negotiations. During the financing some of the initiatives that countries are taking, negotiations that created the 2015 Paris Agreement, Juan was from reducing emissions to building resilience nationwide; lead negotiator for several of the agreement's chapters. He from climate information services in East Africa to now leads the policy team at Green Climate Fund, an arm of concrete initiatives dealing with coastal management on the UNFCCC dedicated to assisting developing countries in islands in the South Pacific. It is quite a spectrum of work financing their response to climate change. that we're financing. Do I ever feel totally discouraged? Many times. Many Coming from Costa Rica, a country that doesn't have a times. These are very complex international decision- military and is heavily engaged in international diplomacy, making processes. Now as I look back to see the minute- the belief in peaceful outcomes and peaceful resolutions by-minute of all of these processes, I can begin to see how to complex problems is something I've grown up some of those things that were quite sad and frustrating knowing-that's the way to do things. That has always back then have actually moved along-maybe not at the been with me. pace that we've wanted, but at least they are moving. In Bolivia, I was supporting the implementation COA offered me the opportunity to get much more of the country's entire response to climate change- serious about international affairs and understand national planning efforts and some initiatives Bolivia the complexities that go with trying to wrap your head was designing, but also supporting a lot of the work on around the field of international governance, international foreign policy. Then I joined their national delegation and relations, as well as law. It was a rich experience. I can't supported negotiations related to climate change impacts think of any other place where I could take such complex and Bolivia's response to them-what we call adaptation and advanced courses that had to be studied together, in the United Nations. and often it was maybe just five students who were At that point I started negotiating for this larger bloc- involved. Being at COA also offered an opportunity to the G-77-and through that started the work on the really value creative thinking and problem solving-and general concept of response to climate change impacts. that's not to be underestimated. This led to creating what is now a new field of work in COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 31 Lauren Nutter '10, center, joins the group of Udall Foundation scholars she facilitated during the annual scholars orientation. Photo by Marthá Lochert. Lauren Nutter '10: Mediator While studying for a master's degree in international year, one of which was a Ken Cline policy-oriented class. environmental policy and conflict resolution at Tufts I became interested in the process of working with University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Lauren multiple perspectives to inform decision-making and the Nutter '10 continues part-time at the Udall Foundation's importance of collaboration in solving environmental US Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution, where challenges. I still took science classes, but my path was she's been for five years. At COA, Lauren attended several evolving beyond just wanting to be a marine biologist. COPs, becoming fascinated by the need for collaboration in My first UNFCCC was in Bali in 2007. That year there environmental policy work. After graduation, she traveled was no UNFCCC-focused class. Matt Maiorana '11 and the world, further exploring youth empowerment in I went as part of the youth organization SustainUS. environmental decision-making on a Watson fellowship. There were thousands of people at the meeting, and we were trying to figure out where and when to be places At the Udall Foundation, my work has been to improve and how to actually engage in the process. We were all collaboration in environmental decision-making and kind of teaching each other. But it was formative-all policy processes, such as implementing parts of the these diverse people, perspectives, and knowledge. It's Clean Water Act and bringing together local, state, and a challenging, messy process to try to work together to tribal leaders with the National Ocean Council on ocean resolve issues. And that fascinated me-the hard work planning and sustainability issues. I'm especially proud of of consensus building among all these countries, the the National Ocean Policy work. urgency of climate change, and the heartbreak of young The policy encourages regional planning on ocean people from island nations advocating for their countries, issues and increased coordination among agencies uncertain of their futures. responsible for ocean management and regulation. It After the Bali conference, Doreen Stabinsky created a also calls for government-to-government engagement of climate negotiations class, offering space to debrief what I Native American tribes at the same level as states and had experienced firsthand. That and other classes helped federal agencies, and emphasizes the value of traditional me explore how to tackle big, international challenges, knowledge in ocean management. It is historic for the such as climate change. tribes to be included proactively at the highest level of Working for the Udall Foundation's US Institute for government. My biggest impact there was helping to Environmental Conflict Resolution has built upon the design and facilitate discussions among state, tribal, and challenges I saw through the climate talks-the hard local leaders. These meetings were powerful as tribes had work of fostering collaboration, of oftentimes not having their perspectives understood and supported on a deeper neutral facilitators and mediators, and working with level. diverse people and skill sets. I remember seeing how My most exciting days have been out in the field, like a chair can do a really great job with a group and how when I would go to the Obama White House to discuss that can help create success for consensus, versus the ocean policy work with the National Ocean Council-and challenges when that's not the case. These experiences on occasion take advantage of some after-hours bowling definitely influenced my desire to work in environmental at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. collaboration and conflict resolution, bringing me full When I came to COA, I was sure I wanted to study circle for a more internationally focused master's degree. marine biology, but I took a range of classes my first 32 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE STOP FUNDING FOSSILS Matt Maiorana '11 at the COP 2 Paris, France in 2015. Photo by Juli DeSantis Maiorana '12. en Matt Maiorana '11: Organizer Matt Maiorana '11 went to his first UN negotiation as have any advice? she asked. The only thing I could muster a second-year in 2007. He's since attended multiple UN was, Prepare to be disappointed. Then I felt bad, so I went meetings, but after that first meeting he helped create with her to the Commission on the Status of Women. Six COA's environmental justice group Earth in Brackets, or years after, last October, we got married! [Earth], and obtain official observer status at the UNFCCC. But Copenhagen, and having to wrestle with the Matt has worked for both the government and advocacy hard reality of the challenges we're facing, that this isn't groups, including as an organizer for the 2014 People's a short-term endeavor, was my growing-up moment. Climate March. Currently, he's with the nonprofit Oil Change Coming to terms with this as a lifelong struggle toward International. He also cofounded the website activistlab.org justice, that we're always going to fall short-because with Sam Miller-McDonald '09. we're already falling short and climate change is already here-is a tough thing to internalize. The first negotiation I went to was Bali in 2007. That's The orientation I take now is less about the grand when they put in place a roadmap to the Copenhagen abstract sense of solving climate change and more about negotiations of 2009, where we were going to create creating change better-being a better activist, a better the agreement that would solve climate change. I citizen, finding new and better ways to engage people and thought, This is going to save the world! So my years build community and resilience with them. I used to just at COA were knee-deep in climate issues. I went to work until I fell asleep. Now I'm taking time to appreciate negotiations, worked for the House of Representatives' life and marriage and friends and family, because that's Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global what it's all about. Warming, and interned in the State Department office ActivistLab is an online space to share what we're that dealt with climate change to see if the inside game learning, what we're doing well, what we're doing poorly, was where I was going to fit. But I found it way too to examine our assumptions, challenge ourselves to take bureaucratic and ended up working for Avaaz, a global risks and push beyond what's easy to cross-pollinate advocacy organization. between issues, movements, organizations. Also to tell Then, as a senior, Climate Action Network hired me in stories of who we are and why we do this work, because the year leading up to Copenhagen, first as an intern, then progress is slow and it happens in fits and starts. I'm as staff. I went to five negotiations that year because there excited to be working on it with Sam Miller-McDonald '09. were a bunch of prep meetings. And it all came crashing He's at Oxford now getting a PhD and looking at these down in Copenhagen! This house of cards I'd built for issues through a more academic lens. myself was totally blasted. I was super disillusioned-and The time that I spent off campus as an undergrad, the I still had to get back to campus to try to graduate on time. connections I made, and the work I did in the real world I didn't want to have anything to do with the UN or has led to this career. It's different when you're applying with climate. Then Julia DeSantis '12 was interested in for a job and can say, / organized this rally and mobilized going to the UN Commission on Social Development in these people. You're able to enter the job market with four New York. I've heard you went to the UN a bunch; do you years of experience. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 33 Natural Products Map Trudi Zundel '13 speaks about ETC's online resources to a group of representatives from Africa, Latin America, and Europe at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in December 2016. Photo courtesy of ETC. Trudi Zundel '13: Communicator Trudi Zundel '13 attended two UNFCCC conferences while in Ghana. This is helping to put the UNFCCC and other UN at COA. She is now a master's candidate in geography at fora into perspective and better understand the impacts the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, as well as the that political agreements might have in the real world. first full-time communications coordinator at ETC Group, ETC Group is also focused on the real-world a nonprofit working to "address the socioeconomic and implications of global policy. A lot of the communications ecological issues surrounding new technologies that could work we do is with governments-communicating some have an impact on the world's poorest and most vulnerable of the social impacts of various international policies. I people." also work with other civil society groups, trying to build a movement to influence global public opinion on climate With political science and governance courses, it's change issues, and mainstream some more progressive hard to do hands-on, practical learning, because it's an issues on climate justice-especially in North America-to abstracted system. In COA's UNFCCC course, we spent communicate the importance of the global impacts of the term learning about the ins and outs, the politics climate change. and history of that political forum, and then we were I wouldn't have the understanding of the global able to experience those politics in the place where they significance of those politics if I hadn't studied with occurred. Doreen Stabinsky, but also if I hadn't taken other courses The two UNFCCC negotiations definitely inspired outside the UN system. I took Nature of Narrative with me, but many of my good friends returned saying, The Karen Waldron and a short story class with Candice international space won't save us. Our work on the ground Stover. Looking back, they taught me to think critically is more important, which is also valuable. It can go both about texts, which is so valuable in my master's and my ways. Engaging in international governance is really job. We learned about critical thought beyond just the only useful if you also pay attention to the impacts of books we were reading, extending those critical-thinking international policy at smaller scales. tools to our own lives, and learning to understand I've been learning a lot about the national and radically different perspectives. subnational levels relating to agriculture and climate In my work I help facilitate people's stories and I try change. The year after I graduated, I worked with the to tell them in a way that will resonate with different Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice, a civil society audiences, but they are not my stories. I'll never be able network that seeks to bring campaigns around energy, to communicate climate change or agricultural issues food, and migration together under one framework of as effectively as someone who lives them. That humility climate justice. I did some writing and communications for and also that responsibility to not make it about me- them and worked for part of the year in the Philippines, especially working at the intersection of global and where I learned so much about social movements in the localized issues-is important, as is understanding that a Global South. Afterward, I started my master's in Ontario, communicator's role includes a responsibility for making researching how a concept from the UN is implemented sure other people's voices are heard. 34 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Tara Allen '15 holds a bunch of kale in the fields of Green Flamingo Organics. Photo by Shayna Hunt. Tara Allen '15: Farmer Tara Allen '15 attended her first COP as a high school senior much time and energy into doing all these things and trying at the School of Environmental Studies in Apple Valley, to raise awareness and talk to people! Minnesota, and her second in 2009 as a COA student, which The organic farming movement is small in Florida, and inspired her to take an activist turn away from policy. In her it's a little more challenging, but it's also exciting. Florida fourth year, Tara interned at Green Flamingo Organics, a has a reputation for retirement and Disney World and Florida organic farm where she is now the manager. vacation, not for awesome organic farming. We have a lot of retirees who live here, so I think sometimes it's just The COA class that I took to prepare for the UNFCCC about education and informing people about foods like was called Climate Justice. We dove into the philosophy Seminole pumpkins, a native Florida species of pumpkin of justice in general and applied that to climate. In high that thrives year-round, also okra, muscadine grapes, school, I had been more focused on the environment persimmons. We could be eating things that are more and sustainability, but I didn't have a good grasp on what native. A lot of people go to the grocery store and do the those things meant and how to apply them on such a big routine they've done for so many years. Asking them to scale. The students in the COA class got really close, which think about stepping out of that is challenging. This is my made us really motivated. I feel like I learned how to work third season at Green Flamingo Organics, which is about with a team. seven years old. It's come a long way since the beginning, I was interested in the policy and science behind by persisting, by going to local restaurants and saying, climate change. I thought maybe I would go into Hey, we have local produce, do you want to buy it? climatology and some kind of geology. I took a lot You have to really love this work and be willing to give of science courses the first couple of years. After yourself to it. We start at seven, and some days we're Copenhagen, I started switching gears. I got more into done at three, and some days we're not done until six. You agriculture; I took some gardening classes, also art never know what's going to happen, and you have to be classes. I wanted to do something tangible, something willing to keep going. I'd love to start my own farm, but where I could actually feel like I was making a difference. here I'm learning a lot, and every season I build upon my Not that the people who do policy work aren't making a knowledge. I love everything I'm doing, I definitely feel like difference! But I wanted something I could see a little bit I found my thing. Which is very lucky! Some people don't more. People I know go the UNFCCC every single year. And find their thing for a long time. I'm like, How do you do it? It's so emotional and you invest so ***** Marni Berger '09 holds an MFA in writing from Columbia University. Her short story "Waterside" was published in the Spring/Summer 2016 issue of Glimmer Train. Marni's work has also appeared at The Common, The Days of Yore, The Millions, and Fringe Magazine, and her fiction frequently has been a finalist or received honorable mentions. Her novel-in- progress, Love Will Make You Invincible, is a dark comedy about a precocious tween who believes his father is a citizen of a hidden underwater village. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 35 Threshhold, film negative, liquid emulsion on rice paper, 16x20 inches, 2015. 36 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Elutriate Kathleen Donohoe ('91) By Donna Gold Kathleen-Kate-Donohoe ('91) has strong childhood memories of passing through the New Jersey Meadowlands, a region rife with stories about the dumping of illegal chemicals and Mafia victims. "We would hold our noses driving through," she says. "Still, I thought it was beautiful. I wanted to run away from home, get a boat, find an estuary, and disappear into it." The allure of this wetland has not left her, leading to her series Elutriate (meaning, "to purify, separate, or remove by washing"). On days she is photographing, Kate heads to New Jersey, arriving just as the dawn light glimmers, or perhaps before sunset, carrying three large-format pinhole cameras, one of which she built herself. Among the tall reeds and shifting waters she seeks to capture "the point at which a landscape morphs from documentary to memory to fantasy." The largest images are exposed on eight-by-twenty negatives Kate creates from rice paper brushed with a light-sensitive liquid emulsion, the brushwork adding texture to the image. The process requires attention, deliberation. Each exposure takes up to three minutes. Kate generally only brings five negatives. She chooses her subjects carefully. Kate's connection to COA came in 1985, when she visited while on a semester course with Outward Bound. Intrigued by its freedom, she soon enrolled, studying birds, ceramics, drawing, poetry, philosophy, painting. Then she took up boatbuilding, and left for the Caribbean-which is where she was when faculty emerita JoAnne Carpenter contacted her in 1987, asking Kate to be her teaching assistant for a winter term class in Greece and Turkey. "It changed my life," she says. "It shaped the way I now make art." Kate later transferred to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts, where she received a BFA while also designing her own curriculum. "My work is about interpreting the landscape," Kate writes in an artist statement. "It is also about memory. My feelings about nature are visceral. I am constantly striving to reflect the serenity, freedom, and sense of security that I feel when I am outside and alone. I photograph 'fringe' places-areas that are not inhabited by people but that are rife with evidence of them, as well as places from my childhood that have stayed with me and evolved into strange, monochrome memories." The memories that create these hypnotic images aren't necessarily pleasant. About Elutriate Kate writes, "I am in the back seat of my father's car. My elbow is digging into the armrest and I am pressed firmly against the door. No one in my family is speaking. The tension is palpable in this small, enclosed space. We are speeding down the highway. My window is open just a crack and the backs of my legs are sticking to the vinyl seat. There is a lump of fear in my throat. My face is against the window and my breath is creating a fog on the glass Through this steamy fog I see fires burning out of control. I see train tracks, towers, endless power lines, factories, and swaths of open water interrupted by a labyrinth of estuaries weaving through millions of tall reeds-all whipping by at a rapid speed. I am mesmerized by this bizarre industrial landscape and I am desperate to disappear into it." For more on Kate Donohoe visit kathleendonohoe.com. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 37 Rumination, film negative, liquid emulsion on rice paper, 20x16 inches, 2015. Division, diptych paper negative, liquid emulsion on rice paper, 20x16 inches, 2015. POETRY THURSDAYS On Thursday mornings, Alyssa Coleman '17, Morgan Heckard '18, Mayah Murchison '20, and I head to Witchcliff and the office of Bill Carpenter. There, we spend two hours sharing original poems, offering critique and praise to each. In groups like this the finest qualities of our writing can emerge: we know each other, we know where to push each other, we know what standards to hold. There is something honest in our process-it seems to be at the center of our work. -Arlo Cristofaro-Hark '18 Jeremias Goat's Cream Alyssa Coleman '17 Morgan Heckard '18 The little boy is a golden child he is made of setting And the goat's cream keeps on swirling, sun he crouches like the jaguars that were in his blending with the black coffee. Soft white slips softer. chest before he was he digs sweet little holes in What is darkness, as it fades? So I watch, the ground says I love to plant I love to plant he as if observing something sacred. runs around wild jumps screams he was an animal Desolation settles and makes a home once as I was we talk about it by talking about other in my morning mug. From across the counter, things he forgets the words I teach him remembers you scrutinize my movements- instead every detail of every movie he has seen I will I sit, sip, lick my lips-and you say nothing. never need another theater he tells me about the Here in the kitchen, the clock reads 2:35 a.m. men with guns the bad ones slash open throats and And the clock in the kitchen is slow. the others get slashed he says he'd rather be the You part your lips, but still you say nothing; first he tells me again and again but he dances and your mouth is a cave. Inside, savages laughs a lot too he was an animal once as I was we begin to have sex and multiply. talk about it by talking about other things he says he saw the dead baby they took out of his mother he says he saw it he saw it he asks me if I saw it asks me what it was made out of I tell him I am trying to find out he says small how small asks me if it was real he says it didn't move says that was in my mother he says it was cute almost but it was dead so dead he says death death death and he dances 40 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE This morning, Poetry Thursdays Arlo Cristofaro-Hark '18 Mayah Murchison '20 somebody tips over Scratchy throat, a big jar of honey Sore pupils. in the sky Head aches before eyes open. Skin smells sweet and swiftly and rancid. golden morning Never enough hours spills through the of REM. hallway, kitchen into the bedroom I open my mouth, illuminating Josephine, And the torrential spill barefoot in the doorway, Of letters: and myself, Combinations in sheets; Syllables Fall free. before each day, the steady weight of living | sit up is lifted slightly. Fast. Too fast. the steady weight of living Whack my head against is present, yet Stray paragraph. Bat it away, lifted, Double take. slightly. No. Delete. "Always trim" Watch beeps: time for breakfast! Shall | dine On prose this morning? Or perhaps a line of poetry. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 41 Remembered Earth By Kirsten Stockman '91, illustration by Peter Kennell '17 Fire in the field and the birth of fire. Dry rivers and thirsty soil. The strong wind, steady as a blast furnace, and windmills drawing deep. This is the remembered earth that is lodged within her. This is what clogs her ears and crowds her vision: and it is greater than the thunder of fifty million buffalo. This is the known world, these plains. She's touched them with her hands through every season, and she asks of them: Are these dry hills / see around me also inside? She has lived here forever and what she sees is this: the chalk soils, the blanched sky, and an empty horizon. 42 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE It was ten years ago, the year after couldn't warm her, Beatrice saw say anything more. She traced Beatrice had buried her husband. that it would take something radical: highways, rivers, and mountain Anna arrived at the door with perhaps the strong sun would help, ranges with her finger. She became nothing but a neatly packed, waxed perhaps the open country. She didn't SO engrossed with the possibilities cardboard fruit box of mementos know; she went on instinct. She that she forgot, for a moment, about and a small suitcase of worn-out turned away from the familiar. She the girl standing so quietly beside and outgrown clothes. She had turned boldly away, trying hard not her. Until she was startled by a voice, kept a sandalwood music box of to look back at what she'd left behind tentative and small, that broke into her mother's and an antique silver her. her thoughts. mirror, a beautiful, handmade doll, "Let's just choose a place, dear. "Could we have a garden?" a pair of her father's creased, brown How does that sound?" Beatrice Beatrice looked up from the map leather shoes, and a worn-out tweed said, rolling the map out before and straightened to standing. She jacket-his only one-perhaps the them on the table. The girl shrugged turned toward the girl and a slow one he was married in. disinterestedly, but Beatrice had smile spread across her face. The girl had arrived with five crisp seen her eyes fly open in surprise "We'll have a big garden. hundred-dollar bills in an unmarked for an instant. Yes, that's what she Definitely a garden. We'll grow envelope in her pocket. And the wanted-to shake her back to life. To tomatoes and corn and sunflowers, passbook to her father's savings show her that courage came in many and we'll have birdhouses all around account, which contained three forms and sizes. Even in the form the yard. And every spring we will thousand, eight hundred dollars. of a foolish, overweight, forty-year- have the first blooming zinnias of There was insurance money too, old widow. Maybe Beatrice wanted anyone in town. How does that which Beatrice carefully put away for to convince herself of this too: that sound?" the girl's future. the world was still there for her, The girl's pale cheeks lifted a little It was awkward at first. The child still open, still big. That it wasn't all and her small teeth peeked out from seemed indifferent to comforting. endings yet for her, that there were between her pink lips as she gave Beatrice would take her in her arms, still beginnings ahead. Bea a fragile smile. "Okay," she said. and it was like hugging a wooden "Let's just pick a place that "Then I think we should head chair. She was a cold little thing, a looks nice and let's go there. It's west," Beatrice said, turning back to quiet child who rarely laughed or crazy. What do you say?" She was the map. "We need to find a place even smiled. frightening herself with this idea. where the soil is good. See the Great In those early days together, What if she did take the bait? Then Plains?" She swept her hand across Beatrice used to wake at night to they would have to do it. There was the middle of the country. the terrible, lonely sound of the girl no going back on this girl. "We don't The girl stepped to the table and crying in her sleep. The child never have to stay. We can just explore. We examined the map closely now. With cried in daylight though. If something can always come back here." her eyes she traveled from the realm bothered her, she withdrew into "What about school?" The girl of the familiar-the New England herself and became so small and was skeptical. She didn't fully shores where she had spent her nine silent that she seemed almost to trust Beatrice yet. She didn't trust years-and moved westward. She disappear. This swallowing quietness anybody. went straight through the middle. was even more upsetting to Beatrice "We'll get books. We'll bring them She crossed the Mississippi and than tears. with us. I'll teach you. And if we find traveled just east of where Beatrice's But struggling through those first a place that we like, you can go to hand lay. She lightly touched the tip bewildering months with the girl school there." of her finger to the map-to the very helped soften the edge of Beatrice's "Let's see," Beatrice bent over the center of the map. own losses. This new problem, this map. "Shall we cross the Mississippi? "Kansas?" Beatrice asked, willing strange child, helped point Bea We could head south or west The herself to be calm-and open. Her forward. It became her purpose to girl stepped a little closer and stiffly heart stepped up its pace and began blow warm life back into the girl's peered over at the map. "It's a big to beat hard against her chest. frozen heart. She became dedicated country, we could even go north. I Anna nodded. to this incubation. Tenderly, she hear Maine's nice. Or Minnesota. "Do you think that's the place for devoted herself to the child's revival, Look at all of these lakes! We could us?" Beatrice asked with complete and for the first time since Niko's go fishing and swimming. We could seriousness. The girl shrugged. Her death, she saw the future open up find an old farmhouse and fix it up cheeks reddened. "Did you see The again before her. however we like " Wizard of Oz?" But when she had emptied her The girl was silent but appeared The girl mutely nodded, yes. bag of tricks for the girl and still to be thinking, SO Beatrice did not "Did you like it?" COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 43 "Yes," Anna said. "Except I didn't of the town and saw that the shops like it when Dorothy was caught in were all dark. PATIENCE + THRIFT = the witch's castle and the witch sent Crossing the prairie at night, they SUCCESS, she read from a big sign the flying monkeys out the window couldn't see a thing, only darkness as she turned into town. "Yes, yes, to get the scarecrow." to either side and in the distance for God's sakes patience, Bea," she "That was a scary part all right." the tall mysterious lights of a grain muttered, impatiently. She just The girl was studying the map elevator or the clustered twinkling of wanted a place to lay her head! Was closely now, whispering the names of a town. this SO much to ask? the dream towns that walked across During the day, she watched She had just about decided to the rectangular state in the dead- everything. She could not tear pull off the road and sleep in the center of the country: Haysville, her eyes away from the endless car when she saw a small battered Crystal Springs, Kiowa, Enterprise, landscape of America as it rolled out sandwich board sign with half the Cedar Vale, Whitman, Maple City, before her. She had never imagined letters fallen off. It said: ROSE'S Council Grove, El Dorado, Mt. Hope, it so big, so wide, so empty. After a R OMS-WE WE COME WALK-INS. Pretty Prairie, Elyria, Paradise. She while, Anna curled up on the front The shabby, peeling framed house did not know the meaning of these seat and slept. When the girl had didn't look much better than the words, but the sounds of them rang bad dreams, Beatrice would talk to sign, but there was no choice. If she like little bells to her and she could her in a low, confident voice of all the wanted a bed, this was it. hear her future in them. good things to come. "We will have She angled the station wagon Beatrice bent close, her head a kitchen with lots of cupboards," to the curb and shut the engine off, almost touching Anna's and said, she said. "White wooden cupboards. dropping her head onto the seat "Kansas, huh?" The girl shrugged And a cuckoo clock on the wall with a back and heaving an exhausted sigh as the quiet night seeped in through the open windows. Beatrice glanced "We'll have shiny brass beds with lots of fluffy goose down pillows. And down at the child who was sleeping on the seat beside her, and for a brief we'll hang our sheets on the line in the sun, so that every night you'll fall moment she felt a rise of fear and asleep with the smell of the blue sky in your dreams." a spinning sense of vertigo. "I am responsible for this creature," she told herself. "She's got only me and again. It was that shrug-of little blonde bird that looks just like no one else." Bea hated to think what anticipated disappointment, you. That springs out on the hour would happen if she messed this up. of accepted defeat, of already and says: Cuckoo-Cuckoo. What on earth are we doing here? Is abandoned expectations-that did it. "And shiny brass beds. One for this crazy? Where are we going? She "Okay. We'll do it. Let's go there me and one for you. With lots of studied the child with a worried look and check it out," Beatrice said fluffy goose down pillows. And we'll as if her face might hold the answer firmly. "Oh boy," she sighed, feeling hang our sheets on the line in the to these mysteries. But her answers the full weight of her decision, feeling sun, so that every night you'll fall were only the even breath of sleep. amazed, feeling afraid but willing. asleep with the smell of the blue sky Bea slipped out of the car into "Kansas she said again and in your dreams. the balmy summer air. She pushed smiled. She covered the girl's small, "We'll have a good life, Anna. the door against the latch quietly cool hand, lying across the sunflower You and me-" Bea would say, only so as not to wake the child, and state with her own and squeezed it. to look and find that the child was stretched her cramped arms and Beatrice expected Anna to already sleeping. legs with a moan of relief. She kept extract her hand immediately, or It was after ten when Bea finally listening for something but there to leave it inert and unresponsive pulled off the highway and onto the was, amazingly, nothing to hear. It until she pulled her own away, but dark streets of Elder's Grove. The was the most complete silence she she didn't. The girl's cheeks showed place looked as good as any and she had ever experienced, except maybe encouraging spots of color now. was exhausted. She had assumed underwater. There was no highway "Oh boy, oh boy," Beatrice said they would be able to find a motel noise, no sirens, no music, no voices. shaking her head and smiling. "I room, but after passing one sleeping All was still. She shivered a little at never thought I'd live in Kansas." The town after another, she'd realized the strangeness of it all. But where child smiled tentatively back and her mistake. "I guess we're in the are all the people? gave Beatrice's hand a quick, hard country now," she said to herself Just as she was about to get squeeze. as she drove down the main street back into her car and get the hell 44 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE out of this queer, hushed place, she It's gross," the boy added. The man hanging unbuttoned. He patted the heard the deep, low rumble of a V8 in the truck laughed. breast pocket and smiled, gingerly engine. Bea waited, standing there "Yeah, he's right. Steer clear of the extracting a crooked cigarette. in the street, feeling lost and a little oatmeal and the Hawaiian omelet. By "Mind if I have a smoke before we bit scared. The engine sound came the way, I'm Harlan Whitehouse." A go in? My aunt won't let me smoke closer. And then, as if she had called burly hand came out to meet her and in the house. She hates the stink. it to herself from out of the black Bea stepped forward and shook it. It's been a hellish long day. We're night, the cheerful headlights of a "I'm Bea." harvesting wheat, you know." truck appeared around the corner. "Pleased to meet ya. Welcome to "I'm surprised your aunt lets you Bea watched as the truck slowed Elder's Grove." smoke at all. You're awful young to in front of her car. She started to He was an attractive man, smoke." Bea watched with surprise wonder if this wasn't very stupid of Bea noted, and friendly. But he as he struck a match and lit it. "Do her to just be standing here like this. seemed shy, and once they were your parents let you do that?" Maybe she should be preparing to introduced he was quickly at a loss He shrugged and shook out the defend herself and Anna against the for something to say. He turned match. "I've been smoking since I advances of some perverted creep. back and pointed his finger at the was twelve." But before she had a chance to look boy. "I need you early tomorrow and Bea was tempted to give him a for her tire iron, the truck stopped I need you awake. So don't go out lecture about the idiocy of smoking, and a disarmingly gentle male voice gallivanting." Then his expression but she restrained herself. This spoke up out of the darkness of the softened and he winked at Bea. He wasn't her kid and she was tired. So cab's interior. said goodnight and pulled off-to she crossed her arms over her chest "Everything okay, ma'am? You Bea's great disappointment. and leaned against the car to wait. need some help maybe?" A boy, who had been riding in back, sprang over the side of the There wasn't a trace of the insolence that filled the eyes of many fifteen- truck. He surprised Beatrice by year-olds. But there was a sort of unsparing appraisal, a kind of honest coming to stand companionably beside her, almost rubbing scrutiny that Bea found a little unnerving in such a young face. shoulders, close enough to take her hand, close enough so she could smell his sweet, boy sweat. Beatrice looked after the truck's The boy smoked and looked out "Car trouble?" the voice asked diminishing tail lights with a twinge into the street, turning now and again. "I'll be happy to give you a lift of unaccountable regret. She turned again to calmly study the woman somewhere." to the boy and he shrugged and beside him, squinting as he took "Oh," Bea sighed and pushed smiled. She tried to smile back, hungry drags on his cigarette as up her sleeves tiredly. "We've been though she almost felt unequal to if it were his only sustenance. driving all day and we needed to the effort. "Is that guy married?" she Bea fidgeted at first, a little stop for the night. I saw the sign for asked suddenly, her voice poised uncomfortable with the silence. She rooms." She looked back toward the between humor and hope. tried to think of things to say, but she darkened house doubtfully. "I know "Yep," the boy answered. "Fraid was too tired to make conversation. it's kind of late but I was hoping we so." He gave her a sly, sideways look. The boy did not seem to care either could stay." "But I'm not." This made Beatrice way; he seemed willing to chat or The man in the truck indicated laugh out loud, and the boy laughed just as happy to be silent. He was the boy with a tilt of his head, "Well, with her and she liked him all at absolutely at his ease, in no apparent you're all set then. Here's your once. hurry to finish, move, or speak. man. Rose is his aunt. She's got the It was a humid July night, and As he studied her, there wasn't rooms." the boy was naked from the waist a trace of the insolence that filled The boy grinned. "Rooms are all up with his shirt slung loosely at his the eyes of many fifteen-year-olds. empty-always are. She never has hips. Beatrice watched as he twisted But there was a sort of unsparing anybody. But she won't cook." and fished for something in his back appraisal, a kind of honest scrutiny "Shorty's is just up the way pocket. He was lean and muscular, that Bea found a little unnerving here. You can get yourself a decent his body just fleshing into manhood, in such a young face. But she had breakfast there in the morning," the and she could see the outline of nothing to hide really, so she stood man said. every rib as he turned. He untied his up to it without flinching. After a "But just don't get the oatmeal. shirt and shrugged into it, leaving it while he smiled slowly and cocked COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 45 his head. I'll show you up. The place is never As the girl looked up at him, the "So. You running away from locked, so you can come and go as darkness that always seemed to home?" you please. Should we wake her?" He confront her upon waking began to This made Beatrice laugh. "Oh nodded toward the car. subside, but the familiar headache boy. Is it that obvious? Honestly, I "I hate to. She's had an awful that went with it began to set in haven't a clue what I'm doing." She hard time sleeping lately. Why don't earnest, slanting behind her eyes so laughed again, a bit wistful now. you show me the room first. Then I'll that she had to squint to see him. "Yes, we're looking for a life. Got any come back and carry her up." Through half-closed eyes she saw great ideas?" "Suit yourself." The boy started that his hair and chest and eyebrows At the word we, the boy bent to to walk across the dry lawn toward were covered in a dust that made look in the car window and saw the the darkened building. Bea followed. him look pale and glowing. Strange sleeping girl for the first time. She There was a light affixed to the eave and ethereal and blue, she thought, was clutching a pillow like it kept her of the garage and it cast long, eerie like a moth or an angel even. And afloat, her long hair fanned wildly shadows from their bodies over the there were patches of darkness on around her. ground. As they were about to step his body where the night had pasted "Maybe you should stay here?" he in the side door, Beatrice heard a cry. him with shadow, where, it seemed suggested, peering at the girl. They both spun around and saw to her, he harbored pockets of magic; Bea took this lightly at first and the girl standing small against the ragtag, like the pied piper. She almost laughed, but then she looked car, a tight patch of darkness except wondered what on earth could be around at the empty streets and for her upturned face and yellow hair inside of them. quiet houses. A shiver coursed that grabbed the angled light. She The girl slowly released her frozen through her. Everything seemed was standing on the grass, clutching grip upon the door, reached out, so strange: the truck coming out of the door handle with both hands and took his hand. He reminded nowhere right to where she stood, behind her and seemed unwilling or her of a luna moth she had once the boy's uncanny gravity, the unable to let go of the car. seen fluttering over a city street stillness, and her own exhaustion. It "Beatrice," she called in alarm. after a summer rain, silvery and all combined to make the moment "Don't go!" night-draped. The reason she took seem dense and grainy like an old Bea motioned with her arm. his hand was that she suspected he movie, so that it almost felt like fate "Come here, honey. We were just might be from Mars or some other was pressing on her shoulder. going inside to get a room. I was planet, like her, dropped down from "Do you like it here?" she heard going to come right back out for you. nowhere to nowhere. herself say in a voice that sounded Come on, sweetheart, come with She was watching him, instead of thick and odd. The boy turned back us then." But the girl didn't budge. watching where she was going and to her with a thoughtful look, as if She seemed fastened there, caught she stumbled a little, inadvertently he'd never stopped to consider such behind some invisible barrier. wrenching his hand and squeezing questions. "I had a nightmare," she said in it a bit too hard. She would always, "I don't know. It's home. The a voice that grew fainter and trailed always remember how he didn't wind blows a lot," he answered. He into silence, unable to project itself wince or scold or pull away but only paused to think of something more over the distance between them. looked down and smiled at her and definitive to add but couldn't come said softly, "I got ya." up with much. "It's okay, I guess," he When he heard her cry out, the boy, It must have been then, when she finally said with a shrug. "As good as Jonny Carter, did not hesitate. He first saw him, bare chest powdered in anywhere." He sucked the last of the started toward her, quickly crossing grain dust and dark night obscuring smoke into his thin frame and threw the lawn. When he reached the car, his eyes. It must have been then. the butt on the ground. "Ready? he held out his hand. *** Kirsten Stockman '91 (1968-2013) studied botany and agriculture as a COA student, interning with the Land Institute in Kansas, where she participated in a wheat harvest. This experience became the backdrop of her coming-of-age novel about Anna Garland, a young woman deeply connected to the prairie, farming, and the 1954 pickup truck she restores. Posthumously published, Remembered Earth was written as a series of vignettes. The above edited excerpts recall how Anna, orphaned at age nine, and her widowed Aunt Beatrice come to Kansas. The book is available at KirstenStockman. com. Peter Kennell '17 uses digital and traditional media to illustrate landscapes and architecture. For his senior project, he's launching an illustration and design business through the Diana Davis Spencer Hatchery. 46 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Donor Profile Donna and William Eacho By Donna Gold Each summer, whether they're in DC, Austria, or we could start the ball rolling and incentivize others to elsewhere, the Eachos have been certain to return to match us." Bill is not talking about a carbon tax. His idea is their home on Mount Desert Island. Whether indoors or what he calls a pro-growth fee, with the revenue recycled. out, Maine is connecting time for parents Bill and Donna "Economic studies show that if you put a price on carbon Eacho, and their three sons, now in their twenties. and collect an extraction royalty, you could recycle that Early on, for at least a few weeks each summer, the revenue into reducing other taxes that are a drag on children would begin their days at the George B. Dorr growth. The United States has the highest statutory tax Museum of Natural History as participants in the Summer rate in the developed world, so there's a lot of interest in Field Studies day camp that COA has run since 1985. The lowering the corporate tax rate, though no one wants to boys would hike mountains, climb rocks, and explore give up the revenues. At thirty-five dollars a ton of CO2, tide pools, returning home in the afternoons with excited we can reduce emissions, cut the corporate tax rate to 25 stories about where they had been and what they had percent, drive faster growth, and return funds through tax discovered. "They knew more than we did because they cuts and rebates to hard-working households." He refers had gone to Summer Field Studies. It taught them a lot- to his plan as "carbon-funded tax cuts-making polluters and us too!" recalls Donna. pay." Though a strong step was taken at the 2015 Paris Over the years, she adds, the family has dined on climate change meetings, says Bill, "it was not enough to produce from the college's Beech Hill Farm, and enjoyed bend the curve." The pledges to limit CO2 emissions, he the weekly conversations, lectures, movies, and gallery adds, "could reduce the overall increase to three degrees shows hosted at COA. More recently, they've also come to Celsius, but we needed to get to two degrees or less. Only engage with students. a market-based price mechanism can deliver that result A graduate of Duke University and Harvard Business along with stronger growth." School, Bill spent most of his life building and ultimately Once he left Austria, Bill wasted no time. In 2014, he selling a food distribution business. He then invested in launched his advocacy nonprofit, The Partnership for private equity and real estate until he was asked to serve Responsible Growth. As he did, he spoke with Doreen as ambassador to Austria by President Barack Obama in Stabinsky, COA faculty member in global environmental 2009. When he stepped down from the position in 2013, politics, a longtime participant in climate negotiations. Bill took stock of himself, the world, and his impact. What When they talked, Bill asked Doreen whether she knew of he saw looming as "the biggest challenge that humanity students who could help him design the initial website for faces" was climate change. Having experienced how the organization. Khristian Mendez '15 and Lucas Burdick fulfilling public service could be, he wanted to do more. '15 obliged. Says Bill, "COA has positioned itself as one of After pondering the problem-and its urgency-his the best colleges with an environmental focus. Students solution was economic. "The most effective way to reduce are learning how to make a difference in the world and pollution is to price it," he says. "If the US were to do so, lead fulfilling lives." COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 47 ALUMNI NOTES 1976 experiences witnessing diplomatic Island Journal, a publication of the "Enjoying retired life," writes Susan meetings of the Montreal Protocol. Island Institute. Applegate. "More gardening, yoga, kayaking, reading, making baskets, 1980 1990 traveling. And always looking for "Living the good life in paradise, "Two roads diverged in a yellow ways to live lightly on the earth." changing the world one lightbulb at wood, And |-| took the road less a time," writes Susan Freed, who is traveled by, becoming deputy Sally Morong enjoying her job as the energy and superintendent of banking at the Chetwynd is sustainability project manager for New York State Department of finishing her the County of San Diego, CA. Financial Services," writes Dan second novel, The Sangeap. Sturgeon's Dance, 1982 THE to be released this After two hip replacements, 1991 STURGEON'S spring. She also Suzanne Hellman is again working Federico Giller is the president DANCE creates marketing as a massage therapist, a career she and CEO of FPG Creative, an agency CHETWYND graphics and is intersperses with human services focusing on video production. building a copy- work. Most recently, Suzanne editing portfolio, having earned was the program coordinator of 1995 a professional certificate from a mobile assertive community Andrea Lani and Curry Caputo, Emerson College. She still plays treatment team at the Mental Health along with their children, Milo, pennywhistle and fife with Shades of Association of Ulster County, NY. Zephyr, and Emmet, completed Gray, a Civil War string band (sharing She proudly reports that grandson a six-week thru-hike of the 485- that interest with Kate Sheely '07). Xzavier Everest Hellman started mile Colorado Trail. The Denver to kindergarten in September. Durango journey was an anniversary 1977 for Andrea and Curry, who walked In MetroWest Boston, Frances 1983 the trail in 1996. Andrea is writing Pollitt is building a passive house. Peter Wayne is now an associate a book about the hikes and the Beyond requiring minimal energy, it professor of medicine at Harvard intervening 20 years of change in the incorporates architectural elements Medical School, while son Sam has environment and social landscape to describe spiritual reality. "There is just started college in California. of Colorado. Find Curry's videos of a stained glass skylight representing Peter is still teaching Tai Chi and the walk at youtube.com under Curry the Bahá'í solar calendar, a wood- enjoying frisbee in his spare time. Caputo, and updates of Andrea's inlay compass rose indicating the book at remainsofday.blogspot.com. direction of prayer, and a stained 1984 glass door and sidelights adorned Thirty-two years after graduating After 21-plus years with the City with grasses, as a metaphor of COA, Anna Hurwitz returned to of Lindsborg, KS, Kathy Peterson prayer." academia to pursue a master's in is retiring, but still enjoying life library and information science in "Little Sweden, USA." She has 1978 at the University of Washington. become a copy editor for a young- Sally Swisher recently married "My goal is to do archival work for adult author from Minnesota and fellow X-ray technician Tom Bridson. artists and arts organizations to help is restoring her 1913 home. "After They both enjoy birding, hiking, and preserve and share cultural history, retiring, I will finally have time kayaking-and are planning a trip to but I'm open to seeing where the to work on artistic projects and Belize with classmates Jonathan and degree takes me," she writes. "Before hopefully sell some of my work," she Nina Gormley. now, I never realized or appreciated writes. She also continues to ride her how well COA prepares students for horse most days. 1979 post-graduate work. I was able to In December, Andrea Lepcio jump right in, unafraid to go to the 1998 presented The Weakness in Me, primary source for information and Having relocated to Palermo, ME a work-in-progress, at New York data. Only 49 credits to go." after 18 years of work in education, City's Dixon Place. In February, the environmental justice, and nonprofit Ensemble Studio Theatre in New 1989 management in the US and abroad, York offered a reading of her new A folio of oil paintings by David Lindsey Cotter-Hayes, her wife, play, World Avoided, based on her Vickery was featured in the 2016 Amy, and their two children, 48 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Finnegan, 5, and Sawyer, 13 months, has two daughters and is expecting are thrilled. Besides operating their a third child in early spring. While family farm, Poundsweet, Lindsey is Cassie runs her fitness and health assistant director of the Oak Institute coaching business, her husband is THE BLACK FLY for the Study of International Human finishing his final years of active duty SOCIETY IS NOT Rights at Colby College. in the Air Force. JUST FOR ALUMNI, 1999 IT'S FOR EVERYONE! FLY BLACK SOCIETY In January, Chase Morrill and his Dean of Admission Heather Albert- family debuted their series, Maine Knopp and husband, Erich Reed, Cabin Masters, on the DIY network, welcomed Ezra Owen Reed to their saving and renovating old camps family in the spring of 2016. His across Maine, reusing salvaged, adoption was legally finalized in sustainable, and local materials COLLEGE OF THE ATL December. "Ezra is incredible, and whenever possible. Meanwhile, I'm so grateful that he gets to grow Sarah (Heifetz) Morrill '01 is an up in the COA community," says oncology navigator at Central Maine Heather. Medical Center while completing The Black Fly Society her master's degree in integrative was established to make 2000 medicine. They live in Wayne, ME with their four children. donating to COA's Annual Fund easier and greener. Working with the community, Todd West, principal of Deer We hope you'll join this Isle-Stonington High School, has swarm of sustaining donors developed a four-year marine studies by setting up a paperless pathway, using fisheries ecology, business, and navigation to teach the monthly online gift. basics, enabling students to apply for a license to steer a Coast Guard- Follow the instructions at After moving back to Mount Desert certified vessel, and encouraging Island from Philadelphia, PA, Nikolai students to remain in school. coa.edu/donatenow Fox began working for the Beatrix Graduation rates, at 57 percent in Farrand Society as the general 2009, are now above 90 percent. coordinator at Garland Farm. He is If you want to give by mail: also freelancing as a photographer. 2002 COA Annual Fund He writes that the potent magic of Cameron Douglass is a biologist in 105 Eden Street the island is just as he remembers the Environmental Protection Agency Bar Harbor, ME 04609 and can't help but attend to his office of pesticide programs, working (Please make checks out to sketchbooks, oil paintings, and with an interdisciplinary science musical endeavors. "So wonderful team to evaluate ecological effects College of the Atlantic.) to see the amazing things my old data and related reports for existing friends and mentors have been up to or new pesticides. "A lot of our work since graduating from COA." now is focused on pesticide impacts Questions? on pollinator communities, so it's a Call 207-801-5625. 2001 big shift for this plant scientist." He Cassie Cain recently relocated to adds, "My wife, son, and I just moved the Emerald Coast of Florida. She into our first home in the Petworth COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 49 neighborhood of DC. I haven't lived 2005 2009 in any one place longer than three Last summer marked Sarah Sarah Drerup is an emergency years since graduating from COA, so Drummond's 10th season of guiding response specialist in the Federal this putting down roots thing will be small groups on wilderness trips Emergency Management Agency's a new adventure." through Alaska's Inside Passage. public assistance division, as well "I continue to enjoy teaching as a chemical officer leading a Vanessa Jette writes that she and exploring the natural world decontamination platoon as a recently relocated to San Diego, CA. through art," she writes. She is second lieutenant in the Army now starting her own guiding National Guard. Having graduated from law operation, Wonderlust Expeditions, school, Jacob Oakes left Chapel wonderlustexpeditions.com, Leland Moore is now a legislative Hill, NC for a position with Legal offering both artist workshops and and administrative advisor to the Aid of North Carolina in Raleigh, small group trips with a focus on Connecticut Board of Pardons and representing migrant farmworkers natural and cultural history, art, and Paroles. on employment, housing, and conservation. immigration issues. "Although we 2011 miss the North Carolina mountains 2006 Writing from Chicago, Alicia Hynes as well as Maine, Asha has her dream says she is now the full-time job as a nurse at a birth center and production manager of the American the kids are thriving in school," he Theater Company. "I am loving it!" writes. "The area is starting to grow on us." "I am managing forest restoration projects in highly degraded urban 2003 forest sites," writes Philip Kunhardt After five years with another IV, now a forester in the natural scientific society, Bethany Adamec resources group of New York City's is working on issues surrounding Department of Parks and Recreation. education reform, especially in In October, Elsie Flemings and higher education, at the American husband, Richard Cleary, welcomed 2012 Society for Microbiology. She and her Sylvia Candice Cleary into the world. husband have a three-year-old about Fiona, 3, loves being a big sister. to start preschool. 2007 Tora Johnson, MPhil, has completed Jacquie Ramos her PhD in human dimensions of ERASED Bullard self- natural resources at the University BY published her of Maine. The day she submitted her first novel, dissertation, son Wolf began his first THE Erased by the year there. Tora is now an associate Tide. She began professor at the University of Maine TIDE the novel in Bill Julia DeSantis and Matt Maiorana at Machias and continues her applied Carpenter's '10 were married in Kentucky on Oct. research on rural communities Starting Your 29 surrounded by loved ones. In the JACQUELINE confronting a changing world. Novel class, and photo, clockwise from Julia and Matt: continued it as a senior project Jeannie Surheinrich ('13), Annie Ten years in in collaboration with Bill, Karen Cohen '14, Meg Barry '10, Sarah TEN DAYS IN ACADIA the making, Waldron, and novelist classmates. Colletti '10, Sarah Gribbin, Phinn AKIDS Ten Days in In it, a young woman discovers that Onens '13, Dan Rueters-Ward '11, Acadia: A Kids' her family has been harboring dark Sam Miller-McDonald '09, Geena Hiking Guide secrets. Find it online. Berry '10. Not shown is Maggie to Mount Maiorana '15. Julia was back from Desert Island, 2008 several months teaching high school by Hope Jessica Hardy started a new job as science in American Samoa as a BY HOPE ROWAN Rowan, a naturopathic doctor at Nutritional WorldTeach volunteer. Currently, she MPhil, has Wellness Center in Colts Neck, NJ. is choosing medical schools while been published by Islandport Press. Matt continues to fight the fossil 50 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE fuel industry and advocate for clean Foundation. "It is very exciting to be energy with Oil Change International. using what I learned while exploring In his free time, Matt works on the world and being able to put it to activistlab.org. a good use," she writes. In the spring of 2016, Jane Piselli married Rachael Roberts, who is now Rachael Piselli. This spring, Jane graduates from Antioch New England with a master's in education, certified in early childhood, elementary, and special education, and a certificate in nature-based preschool education. Jane and Rachael are currently living in Why I Give Vermont. For a second winter, Carly Segal PANCHO COLE '81 has been seasonally employed in 2013 the bison management office of "As someone who doesn't In December, Marissa Altmann Yellowstone National Park, seeing have children, I have not received her master's degree wildlife as she skis to sample sites. had to pay for anyone else's in environmental studies from She writes, "I am super-excited to college education. | send Prescott College with a thesis be helping gather information about money to COA knowing analyzing the impacts of wildlife- an animal that is both iconic and based ecotourism. Marissa is now in the graduates have the controversial and plays such a large tools and understanding to Allentown, PA, working as a strategic role in the ecology of the greater partnerships fellow with the Wildlife protect what's left of the Yellowstone ecosystem." environment, and moderate Friendly Enterprise Network. 2014 or repair some past and Markéta Doubnerová returned to Magdalena Garcia is teaching current mistakes. Now, more her native Czech Republic and is English in Italy for the Greenheart than ever, our planet needs working on community development Travel Teach English Abroad Program all the help it can get." projects and education at The Via through this April. COMMUNITY NOTES Deep Things Out of Darkness: A History Award. Meanwhile, a limited edition Ken Cline, David Rockefeller Family of Natural History, by John Anderson, monograph series, What It Means to Chair in Ecosystem Protection and William H. Drury Professor of Ecology be Human, produced by three arts Management, was appointed to and Natural History, has been organizations, will feature Nancy's the Acadia National Park Advisory translated into Korean. work along with an essay by former Commission by former Secretary trustee Walter Robinson, MD. of the Interior Sally Jewell. Created Art faculty member Nancy Andrews by Congress, the commission was interviewed on Australian radio, Eight poems by Bill Carpenter, consults with the interior secretary had her drawings featured in the on issues of park management faculty member in literature German magazine, Draeger Review, and development. Steve Katona, and creative writing, have been and released the eight episodes of former COA president and faculty translated into German and are her web series, The Strange Eyes of member, recently stepped down online at The Golden Fish, der- Dr. Myes, thestrangeeyesofdrmyes. as commission chair. Ken has com. This series features many COA goldene-fisch.de, found under the also been selected as a member community members on camera name of German poet and translator of the International Union for and behind the scenes. The movie Mathias Jeschke. These poems, Conservation of Nature's World itself was shown as part of the Dutch from the unpublished collection Commission on Protected Areas, International Science Film Festival Girl Writing a Letter, are also in the an international group of experts in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and current issue of the German literary promoting the establishment and was a nominee for the NTR Audience magazine Akzente. effective management of a global COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 51 representative network of protected Gray '17 at the Northeast Geological In December, Doreen Stabinsky, areas. Last fall, Ken attended the Society of America meeting in faculty member in global IUCN World Conservation Congress Pittsburgh, PA. Meanwhile, Sarah environmental politics, and Ken in Hawaii where he focused on prepared for a spring term Climate Cline took six COA students to the protected area governance and Change Seminar series. 13th Conference of the Parties for environmental law. He was also the UN Convention on Biological recently elected to the board of the Jay Friedlander, Sharpe-McNally Diversity in Cancun, Mexico. The Schoodic Institute, the nonprofit Chair of Green and Socially students followed negotiations, education and research organization Responsible Business, led Fair Food lobbied parties, and worked with managing Acadia's Schoodic Network Business Boot Camps for NGOs and youth representatives Education and Research Center. food entrepreneurs in Michigan and on issues they had been studying Working with Acadia, the institute New England as well as a session at during a preparatory tutorial in the advances ecosystem science and the Maine Food Leader's Forum. He fall term. learning for all ages. also gave talks on the Abundance Cycle in Ithaca, NY and at the On April 13, Gray Cox P'71 will be AshokaU Exchange, a gathering of giving the talk "Let's Make the Earth more than 800 social entrepreneur Great Again: A Gandhian Response to educators in Miami, FL. Finally, Our Global Crisis" at the University Jay and Darron Collins '92, COA of Maine, sharing core ideas from a president, presented on COA's chapter forthcoming in a Routledge- Hatchery and its sustainable India book on contemporary business program at Leadership Gandhian thought. Gray continues Maine, a program which develops the to write and perform original songs next generation of Maine leaders. on love and social change, available Sean Todd, Steven K. Katona Chair at graycox.bandcamp.com and Etta Kralovec, who taught education in Marine Sciences and Allied Whale breathonthewater.com. and directed the teacher education director, attended the annual North program at COA, received the 2015 Atlantic Right Whale Consortium Distinguished Outreach Faculty meeting in New Bedford, MA with Award from the University of his Marine Mammal Biology class. Arizona for her work in closing "gaps Then, over winter break, he joined in achievement and educational the expedition cruise vessel Seabourn opportunities in K-12 schools, Quest, traveling to the Antarctic especially those in underserved Peninsula and onto Valparaiso, Chile communities." As one colleague as an Antarctic guide, offering six commented, "It's not that she thinks presentations. out of the box, she doesn't even see the box." Etta credits COA as In March, Karen Waldron, Lisa In December, Sarah Hall, Anne T. the place where she learned how to Stewart Chair in Literature and and Robert M. Bass Chair in Earth work in communities-which is what Women's Studies, chaired the Systems and GeoSciences, worked outreach is all about. panel "Literary Landscapes: with colleagues at Mount Desert Isolation and Connection in Island Island Biological Lab and Dartmouth In completing her SARE, Sustainable Representations" and presented College on a study of local Agriculture Research and Education a paper on Ruth Moore at the groundwater chemistry, collecting grant on the use of alder chips as a Northeast Modern Language samples from private wells with soil amendment, Suzanne Morse, Association annual conference in help from students and community Elizabeth Battles Newlin Chair of Baltimore, MD. In April she'll be members. While on a winter term Botany, found that alder can be used chairing the panel, "The Female sabbatical, Sarah collaborated as a renewable, on-farm source of Sleuth," and presenting "The with colleagues at the University of chips on a three- to five-year cycle, Complexities of Female Strength Grenoble and University of Maine on helping to build soil carbon, the in Julia Spencer Fleming's Clare various Andean tectonics and climate foundation of organic practices. Find Fergusson Novels" at the Popular projects. In March, she presented the report under alder at mysare. Culture Association annual a paper co-authored by Spencer sare.org. conference in San Diego, CA. 52 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE In Memoriam Dewitt Kimball '83 Susan Storey Lyman Liane "Ann" Peach November 16, 1958 - May 17, 1919 - December 31, 1931- December 6, 2016 December 29, 2016 February 26, 2017 Our friend and client, DeWitt Seeking to strengthen COA's Ann Peach had three young children (Dee) Clark Kimball died after a reputation, Lou Rabineau, COA at home when she volunteered her lionhearted, fearless, and very president from 1983 to 1993, time and thoughts to help COA's personal fight against esophageal recruited Susan Storey Lyman to first board of trustees, led by Les cancer. I was privileged to have the board of trustees in 1990. She Brewer and Father Jim Gower. In been one of his caregivers. Dee came with a BA from Radcliffe January 1970, when Ed Kaelber centered his life around teaching, College, a business administration arrived as president of the yet-to-be the building profession, and the certificate from Harvard-Radcliffe, college, Ann stayed on. In an oral ecological study of home design; a Harvard master's in education, history, Ann recalled: "We started his education informed his work. and more than two decades as a in what is now Peach House. It was Through his business, Complete Radcliffe trustee, eight years as a caretaker's cottage; no heat, no Home Evaluation Services, DeWitt chair, and a year as acting dean of phone, no furnishings. I took a was Maine's leading independent the Bunting (now Radcliffe) Institute. card table, my typewriter, and a energy auditor, diagnosing and Those experiences accrued to COA folding chair from home. Les Brewer recommending fixes to hundreds as Sue told educators, university brought another chair, and we sat of Maine homes and buildings administrators, and others about down with a yellow pad and said, for efficiency, health, safety, and "this remarkable small college in What do we need to start a college? durability. While driven by the Maine." Among them was writer Max The first thing was a coffee pot. urgency of climate change, Dee Hall, whose 1994 article in Harvard "That first year it was Ann, was a building scientist, on the Magazine, "A Distaste for Walls" is Millard, and me," says Ed. "Ann was cutting edge of many emerging one of the most influential pieces truly my partner, and in many ways issues in homes, and a strong voice written about COA. An experienced the leader. We would talk through for bettering the state's energy fundraiser, during her ten years the many priorities and options efficiency programs. He also had on the board Sue championed to pursue. Often, in response to a a master's in education from the the raising of nearly eight million direction I might propose Ann would University of Saint Joseph in West dollars for COA's endowment, and say, You might want to think that Hartford, Connecticut, and spent the acquisition of Sea Fox, Deering through once again. Invariably she sixteen years as a teacher, three of Common, Davis International was right! That year, I'd go off to do them in Arctic Village, Alaska, one of Center, Beech Hill Farm, and the one thing or the other, people would the few outsiders accepted into this two islands. As grateful as I am for call, and Ann would answer the Native American community. Dee's these efforts, what I remember college's one phone. When the caller teaching extended to his auditing and appreciate equally was Sue's asked for the dean of students, work, as noted by Peter Warren of openhearted, gracious, and down- Ann would respond, Yes, this is she. Warren Construction Group who to-earth way. I have an indelible Someone else would ask for the wrote, "DeWitt was very smart, memory of Sue, handsome and dean of development and she'd say, exceptionally patient, and a huge elegant in pearls and the blue and Speaking. Someone else would ask cheerleader as we hit targets in white silk dress she always wore to for the academic dean and she'd building envelope performance that trustee meetings. I told her once answer, Ann Peach, at your service. some only dream of. He was able to how much I liked the dress. She Ann ran every aspect of this college infect even our most grizzled, set- replied, "I got it at the thrift shop on during those earliest days!" in-their-ways carpenters with the Charles Street. I get all my clothes Adds Darron Collins '92, COA enthusiasm for the envelope. Many there. I would never buy a new president, "One of my happiest of our folks never understood how dress!" A Boston Brahmin by birth memories of Ann was as co-pilot in dew points worked or how to chase and marriage, she was a human our July 4, 2015 COA parade float. vapor through a wall assembly until ecologist by nature, championing Ann rode shotgun in Diver Ed's truck DeWitt explained it in his careful, cultural diversity, multicultural with the COA float in tow. Her smile easy manner." education, and many youth efforts. stretched to the horizon!" -Peter Troast of Energy Circle; -Steven K. Katona, former faculty -Ed Kaelber, founding president for more on DeWitt see Peter's blog member and COA president and Darron Collins '92, president at energycircle.com COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 53 TRANSITIONS FAREWELLS Farm: Tess Faller After managing Beech Hill Farm for four years, with restaurants and others to support wholesale Tess Faller '09 has moved on to other callings. efforts, and with our kitchen to provide more Co-manager Anna Davis now runs it with partner produce for students." Says Teagan White David Levinson. "Tess does everything with '18, "thank you for being so welcoming and enthusiasm, energy, intelligence, and grace," says encouraging. It has been a true gift to be able to faculty member Suzanne Morse. "She brings a work with you." And Jenna Farineau '18 adds, "If spiritual power to her work and life. With humor, you have ever had the pleasure to know, meet, insight, and determination she led BHF workers, speak with, work with, laugh with, dance with, sifting through new possibilities with a most sing with, enjoy any kind of moment with Tess pragmatic lens." Andy Griffiths, administrative Faller, then you know just how big of a hole we dean, adds, "Under Tess, the farm has flourished, have in our little community. She is a clear and expanding production. She's been great working beautiful image of commitment and hard work- with students, administrators, and our food Tess and Anna have been the best role models systems people, developing close relationships and support system I could have ever asked for." Library: Terri Rappaport Terri Rappaport retired in December after Kahn '19, "Terri was my supervisor and friend. managing the library's work-study program, We had a multitude of profound conversations among other tasks, since 2006. Years before, she and I learned a lot from her views, perspectives, had worked in COA's development office, then knowledge-and the smile that was forever on moved on to teach in the Conners Emerson and her face." Adds Emmanuel Greeno ('17), "The Pemetic schools. Writes Jane Hultberg, library library remains one of my favorite aspects director, "she built a strong program that instills of COA-thanks, Terri for always fitting our the value and importance of good work habits, schedules with our academics and commitments, professionalism, teamwork, and pride in a job and for being patient and understanding as well done, forging strong bonds with students we grow not only professionally, but as also as and skillfully matching library staff needs with people." student skills and interests." Says Natasha WELCOMES Admission: Matt Shaw '11 "Matt Shaw '11 brings his nuanced perspective experimental humanities program, and also of COA and a strong ability to communicate our managed the iconic Oblong Books & Music in academic and community experience in words Rhinebeck, NY. His senior project was the Blum and images," says Heather Albert-Knopp '99, Gallery installation Those Dark Trees. Delighted to dean of admission. Matt holds an MFA from the be back on MDI, Matt looks forward to exploring University of Illinois at Chicago and has worked in Maine and continuing to make art. Vassar College's film department, Bard College's Development: Tyler Hunt '16 Having spent three summers working for Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in its development, and temporarily covering gift development and communications office. For processing during Amanda Mogridge's maternity his senior project he created the Blum Gallery leave, Tyler Hunt '16 successfully applied exhibition, Form & Figure, a study in figure drawing for Amanda's database position when she and high realism. He happily lives in Ellsworth transitioned to alumni relations. At COA, Tyler with his husband, Tim, and pets Riley, Ludwig, and studied art and writing, and interned with the Prim. Library: Catherine Preston-Schreck Catherine Preston-Schreck is now the library's bookstores, served as camerawoman and editor assistant and work-study coordinator. She on several documentaries, and spent ten years as holds a BA in art and master's degrees in a breastfeeding counselor and doula. Recently, both communication/media from Illinois State Catherine volunteered as a gleaner for Hannah University and in visual anthropology from the Semler '06 at Healthy Acadia, and with voter University of Oxford. She has taught photography registration at the Bar Harbor Town Office. and communication, worked in libraries and Library: Hannah Stevens '09 Thorndike Library's new archivist and cataloguer internship at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor. is Hannah Stevens '09, following Ingrid Hill's She also interned at Wellesley College working transition to a position with student life. on architectural plans, and at the preservation Hannah holds a master's degree in library and company Gaylord Brothers. For the past four information science from Simmons College with years, Hannah worked as an archivist and a concentration in preservation management. librarian at the Northeast Harbor Library. At COA, Hannah took a photography archive Summer Programs: Renee Duncan After four years directing the Summer Field COA and will continue to supervise that program Studies program, Renee Duncan will now also during the summer months." Her year-round work serve as the associate director of summer will be assisting in the preparation of COA's other programs, taking over from Jean Sylvia. Writes summer programs: Family Nature Camp, Summer Laura Johnson, summer programs director, Field Institute, Adult Learner Courses, and the "Renee has done a wonderful job overseeing various summer conferences held on campus. SFS in keeping with the values and mission of COA's Wood Pellet Boiler Ask Millard Dority, director of campus planning, buildings, and public safety, about our wood pellet boiler and he sounds as proud of this Viessmann AMSE-the first for institutional use sold in the United States-as he is of his little dog, Willie. "The pellet boiler is part of an integrated design approach," Millard explains. It runs at 50 percent of capacity because the buildings in the Kathryn W. Davis Residence Village-which is most of what it heats-are so well insulated, the windows and doors so airtight. The theory behind the boiler is pretty simple-a matter of burning the pellets to heat a small amount of water, which in turn heats more water, which then flows into the buildings, heating them. The pellets are delivered three to four times each year from Skowhegan's Maine Woods Pellets, twelve to fifteen tons at a time, filling the silo. Once the pellets enter the boiler an agniter-something like turbo-cha hair dryer-starts them burning Just ao ove the ove an v-three slende tube throug which water flows The fiery pellets heat this water, which then flows into coils within a large, columnar tank that is itself filled with water, raising it to 153°. After heating the 30,000 square feet of the Davis Village and Deering Common, the water returns at 130° to the tank for reheating. Meanwhile, the wood ash drops out of the oven and is emptied into a large can, to be carted out to the compost pile. The entire system is tracked, so we know how much CO2 and carbon are released into the environment and how many pellets it uses. Illustration by Rebecca Hope Woods. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE SUMMER 2017 AT COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC June 3: Commencement July 31 through August 4 COA celebrates the class of 2017 with poet and essayist COA Humanities Institute with Jeff Rosen Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib. A weeklong series of lectures, presentations, and panels curated by the president and CEO of the National July 6: Lecture Constitution Center. Check coa.edu/calendar for a full Dissent Collars listing. Artist Roxana Geffen speaks on her creations, inspired by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. August 7: Sherry Geyelin Luncheon Chef and food blogger Serena Wolf discusses her new July 10: Lecture book, The Dude Diet. Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument An evening with Lucas St. Clair, the environmentalist August 8: Coffee & Conversation behind Maine's new national monument. Co-sponsored Poet Dan Burt joins Karen Waldron, COA's Lisa Stewart by Acadia Senior College. Chair in Literature and Women's Studies, for a reading of his work. July 11: Coffee & Conversation Ann Luther, trustee and former president of the Maine August 15: Coffee & Conversation League of Women Voters, speaks with Jamie McKown, Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train, talks about COA's James Russell Wiggins Chair in Government and her newest book, A Piece of the World. Polity. August 16: Lecture July 13: Blum Gallery Opening Reception A Conversation with Clare Stone The Wonders of Tribal Ethiopia Photographer and collector Clare Stone discusses her Photographer Clare Stone's new work depicts life in the exhibit The Wonders of Tribal Ethiopia with Rebecca Hope Omo Valley, one of the world's last great tribal regions. Woods, COA director of creative services and Blum summer curator. July 18: Coffee & Conversation Monica Wood, bestselling author of When We Were August 21: Lecture the Kennedys, speaks with Lynn Boulger, COA dean of Preparing Leaders in American Life institutional advancement. Michael Gilligan, current president and former program director for theology of the Henry Luce Foundation, July 20: Lecture speaks on America's religious diversity, how religion is Thinking the Human in the Time of STEM integrated into the humanities and social sciences, and its William (Bro) Adams, chair of the National Endowment for role in international affairs. the Humanities and former college president, speaks on science and the humanities. August 22: Coffee & Conversation Professor, historian, COA trustee emeritus, and Pulitzer *July 21: President's Circle Dinner Prize-winning author David Hackett Fischer speaks on his Join William Thorndike, COA board chair, and his wife, upcoming book on slavery, freedom, and the creativity of Geneva, at their Bar Harbor home. African cultures in America. July 25: Coffee & Conversation August 29: Coffee & Conversation Reza Jalali, writer, educator, and Muslim scholar, joins Patrick Chassé, historical landscape architect specialist, Sarah Luke, COA dean of student life. joins Isabel Mancinelli, COA's Charles Eliot Professor of Ecological Planning, Policy, and Design, to discuss the *July 29: Champlain Society Reception iconic landscapes of MDI and how they can be preserved Hosted by trustee Stephen Sullens and his wife, Allison. and integrated into our modern lives. All events are subject to change. For locations, times, updates, and other information, please visit www.coa.edu/calendar. *These events are open to TCS members only. For Champlain Society or President's Circle membership information, call Lynn Boulger, 207-801-5620. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 57 COA The College of the Atlantic Magazine 105 Eden Street Bar Harbor, ME 04609