COA THE COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Volume 8 Number 2. . Fall 2012 DEMOCRACY Toward an Egalitarian Institution COA The College of the Atlantic Magazine Democracy: Toward an Egalitarian Institution Letter from the President 3 COA Time Line Delirious & Suite Limpet The latest from Nancy Andrews and Dru Colbert [Earth] to Rio . The Future We Really Want Democracy 10 The Classroom Republic 12 Student Perspectives 16 Human Ecologists Practice Democracy Across the Globe 20 The Work of Ariel Springfield Durrant 06 29 Short Fiction A Man Is Not A Star [Silverado] by Josie Sigler '94 32 Poetry . Crow by Abigail Dunn '13 38 Alumni & Community Notes 39 Democracy & Community Common Root Community Center 48 Piper's Little COA Creature 49 In the complex formed by COA's environmentally sustainable Kathryn W. Davis Student Residence Village, students from thirty-three nations find time to talk, dance, sing, cook, and study. M COA TRANSPARENCY The College of the Atlantic Magazine ecology Volume 8 Number 2 Fall 2012 MASSES consensus Editorial advocacy cooperation rights human Editor Donna Gold choice openness Editorial Guidance Heather Albert-Knopp '99 speech John Anderson Sarah Baker justice equality community FREEDOM humanity decision-making egalitarianism governance Rich Borden Ken Cline Darron Collins '92 Julia DeSantis '12 Jennifer Hughes democracy RESPONSIBILITY liberty Sarah Haughn '08 Kate Macko activism Mary Katherine O'Brien '15 Editorial Consultant Bill Carpenter Michael Griffith '09 Alumni Consultants Jill Barlow-Kelley Dianne Clendanief What does a college striving toward democracy, toward responsibility, toward Design Art Director Rebecca Hope Woods egalitarianism look like? How does it function? I have a memory from when I first Designer Danielle Meier '08 started at COA; we were working toward our ten-year accreditation from NEASC, COA Administration the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. When the accreditation President Darron Collins '92 team met with the staff, Anna Murphy, former assistant to the president, stood Dean of Admission Sarah Baker Dean of Development Lynn Boulger up and said, "I work here because I have a say in the college, in its governance. Associate Dean for Faculty Ken Cline Administrative Dean Andrew Griffiths I have a stake here." Two, three, maybe more staff members echoed her. The Academic Dean Kenneth Hill Dean of Student Life Sarah Luke NEASC team was impressed that "all constituencies could articulate the core Associate Dean Sean Todd ideas and did so with conviction." Well, of course. That's a given at COA. for Advanced Studies COA Board of Trustees Democracy is time-consuming. It's inefficient. The thing about democracy - and Ronald E. Beard Stephen G. Milliken Leslie C. Brewer Philip S.J. Moriarty certainly about COA - is that everyone, or most everyone, has an image of it. Nikhit D'Sa '06 Phyllis Anina Moriarty The place where we teach or work or study is ours. Each one of us wants to shape William G. Foulke, Jr. Hamilton Robinson, Jr. Amy Yeager Geie Walter Robinson it in our vision. And so there are many images to debate; many forms to shape. George B.E. Hambleton Nadia Rosenthal Elizabeth D. Hodder Marthann Lauver Samek As John March '76 notes in the lead article by Michael Griffith '09, "sometimes we Philip B. Kunhardt III 77 Henry L.P. Schmelzer Anthony Mazlish William N. Thorndike, Jr. just want to be a student." Or a worker, or a teacher. Though governance is part Suzanne Folds McCullagh Joan Van der Grift of learning and working at COA, we do find ourselves relying on administrators Sarah A. McDaniel'93 PaulVand Grift Linda McGillicuddy Cody van Heerden - some decisions just have to be made, after all. And when we do, the school's Jay McNally '84 balance tips toward more of a hierarchy - until, that is, people realize that Life Trustees Trustee Emeriti they've given up something precious, something that makes COA more than just James M. Gower David Hackett Fischer Samuel M. Hamill,Jr Sherry F.Huber a school, more than just a job, but a real calling. And so the balance tips back, John N. Kelly Daniel Pierce Susan Storey Lyman Helen Porter and once again, as Bill Carpenter says and Darron Collins '92 echoes, all of us William Newlin Cathy Ramsdell John Reeves John Wilmerding become responsible for administrating COA. Because, thankfully, democracy is Henry D. Sharpe, Jr. also fluid. Clyde E. Shorey, This issue offers ruminations on balance. On striving toward a democratic The faculty, students, trustees, staff, and institution; on recognizing that we are all responsible for this place we love alumni of College of the Atlantic envision a world where people value creativity so much. And on bringing a belief in this shared accountability into the wider intellectual achievement, and diversity of world. How effectively COA manages to impart democracy in a myriad of ways nature and human cultures. With respect and compassion, individuals construct me eaningful perhaps because our students are so involved in governance - is evident in the lives for themselves, gain appreciatic of section featuring alumni, all of whom have graduated in the last eight years. the relationships 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: COA Magazine, College of the Atlantic 105 Eden St, Bar Harbor, ME 04609 dgold@coa.edu Damn Gold Donna Gold, COA editor WWW.COA.EDU PRINTED WITH MIX Front cover: Praxinoscopes 1 & 2, by Ariel Springfield Durrant '06. CERTIFIED Paper Irans WIND For more, see page 29. - POWER From the President: Darron Collins '92 uring my first twelve months as D pedagogical roots. There's clearly a COA's president I've spent a fair historical and philosophical reason to amount of time learning from shed some light on that cornerstone past presidents. In one such learning in this issue of COA. But there are very moment, Ed Kaelber - COA's founding personal, practical reasons as well. president - responded to a question on leadership with a sagacious I have a picture on my office wall "Darron, most of the time the college's of the COA community (including consensus-driven decision-making its canine members) in 1972. There process produces what you need, but are forty-nine human beings in that there are times when you have to say photograph - staff, faculty, students. 'This is the way it's going to be." We are almost exactly an order of magnitude larger today. More There's an underlying tension here at ideas, more diversity, and simply COA between a hyper-individualized more people make the college's academic program and a radically radical democracy more difficult. democratic, or even more accurately, Personally, being larger presents communal governance system. greater challenges for me as president Negotiating that tension can be and Ed's advice on when to make an difficult intellectually and practically. executive decision becomes more It would certainly be easier if the critical. tables were turned, with an across- the-board unified curriculum and with Practically, as a larger community, decisions emanating directly from an we need not relinquish our principles administrator. But such a scenario of democracy and consensus-driven couldn't be further from what makes decision-making, but we certainly us unique, relevant, and ultimately need to pay more attention to effective. listening, to patience, to empathy, and ultimately to generating the In this issue we explore democracy most widespread modicum of trust from a human ecological perspective possible. - as a method for arriving at decisions, as a way of life, and as an Read on and come to see how those educational approach. In thinking principles are being applied on the through the issue layout, we saw just COA campus and in the wider world. how pervasive the idea is on campus and in the lives of people that move within and through campus. As Bill Carpenter describes, the consensus- driven, decision-making process at the college was a cornerstone for the institution, with both practical and COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 3 [EARTH] DURBAN COA'S FOOD NAMED 7TH BEST IN A FILM BY DEVIN ALTOBELLO 13 DARRON & CO. — 28 PEAKS IN 24 HOURS NATION BY THE PRINCETON REVIEW MAY JUNE JULY 2012 senior exhibits and shows overflow Veteran Journalist Robert Krulwich tells Trustee William V.P. Newlin is named COA spaces, from Chalese Carlson's COA's 87 graduates to find the WhyNot? the George B. Dorr Museum's first "Face installation reflecting the land gift of People: "When you are trying to create of Natural History" after his Coffee and The Protectorate by former trustee Tom a version of yourself that will one day Conversation talk about amateur natural Cox, to Kira Weintraub's exploration of make you happy, and that is your job historians. Morning Coffee and Conversations alchemy, "Transmutations of Humanity," now - half the battle is to know your continue throughout the summer. installed beneath Turrets, to Bo Dennis' insides - know your pleasures. And the Stephen G. Milliken, senior judge in the dance, In Constant Season. other half is to know your outsides - to Superior Court of the District of Columbia, find allies, partners, mentors. You don't Anthony Mazlish, chair and CEO of rejoins board of trustees. become yourself all by yourself." Healthy Back Store, LLC, joins board of COA claims a spot on this year's Princeton trustees. Seven separate enterprises complete Review's Green Honor Roll, the only Maine the Sustainable Enterprise Hatchery. Seniors defeat faculty and staff during school on the list. the annual Tug-of-War. 99 COMMUNITY MEMBERS CARDBOARD INSTALLATION CREATED BY 6FT LEATHERBACK TURTLE JUMP IN FOR THE ANNUAL COA STUDENTS AND SCULPTOR JIMMY GETS HAULED TO CAMPUS BAR ISL AND SWIM GRASHOW OPENS IN BLUM GALLERY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER A 50-foot, 50-ton sperm whale COA opens our 41st year with nearly COA commemorates the 25th anniversary found dead off of Schoodic Point 120 new students, among them 74 of graduating state-certified teachers in its is collected by Allied Whale for first-years. Educational Studies Program during a weekend of necropsy and eventual articulation. discussions with alumni educators. Karen Waldron is named holder of To honor their daughter, the the Lisa Stewart Chair in Literature and More than 180 family members, alumni, and Stewart family pledges $1.25 Women's Studies. friends come to campus for our 2012 Family & million to create the Lisa Stewart Alumni Weekend. COA is listed as one of the top 100 Chair in Literature and Women's colleges in the nation according to U.S. As an independent study, Stevie DuFresne '15 Studies. News & World Report. Rankings are as raised 100 chickens for use at COA. COA provides one-quarter of the follows: #90 among liberal arts colleges, Blake Davis '11 wins first place for investigative student offerings at the American #12 on best value colleges, and #4 on reporting for his senior project piece, "$1 billion Ornithological Meetings in highest on percentage of international Vancouver, British Columbia. students. in exempt property is tax on town," which ran in the Mount Desert Islander. Alex Pine '14 and Lisa Bjerke '13 The Presidential Scholar Fall Fly-in The Dorr Museum creates a creepy-crawly bug- oversee creation of solar charging brings 28 stellar prospective students eating session and nature tour for Halloween, station for electric vehicles - the from across the country to visit campus. thanks to Carrie Graham, museum supervisor. first in the state. 4 CHECK OUT MORE STORIES AND PHOTOS AT NEWSWORTHY.COA.EDU COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE IMMERSED IN THE WATERS OF COA William N. Thorndike, Jr., COA's New Board Chair - By Donna Gold Just before this year's convocation, Will Thorndike drove up to Maine from Boston to fulfill a vow. He was going to join the annual Bar Island Swim that opens each college year. He wouldn't be the first trustee to have done so — but he would be the first board chair. And then the sea kicked up. The swim was called off. With a gleeful, conspiratorial look, Will whispered to COA President Darron Collins '92, "Wanna do it anyway?" And so they did, battling the ocean chop, stroke after stroke for a third of a mile. But Will had no need to forge his connections to COA in the waters of Frenchman Bay. Like the roots of the copper beech trees outside of The Turrets, his connections to the college are historic, grounded, and vibrant. Those trees stand just down the hill from the Thorndike Library, named for his beloved great aunt and uncle, Betty and Amory Thorndike, the couple who introduced Will to Maine, Mount Desert Island, and COA — which they supported before it even existed. Will, who would come to MDI to visit his aunt and uncle for at least two weeks every summer, is just old enough to remember the founding of COA, the fundraising concerts held at the Thorndike home, and the difference that COA soon would make in the community. Years passed. Will received an AB in English from Harvard in 1986, went into college. So many other colleges are publishing, then took a business degree at Stanford University. In 1994 he trying desperately to do the things became a founding partner of the private equity investment firm Housatonic we've been doing and doing well Partners. Still he returned to MDI each summer, eventually buying back the for a long time," he continues. "It's Thorndike home he used to visit as a child. COA's lectures and events added exciting to see the college grow to this meaning to those visits, and its Summer Field Studies program gave his point — in the process of concluding children, now fourteen and seventeen, a sense of the adventures nature offers. a successful capital campaign, with a first alumnus president, gaining At Housatonic, Will appraises companies for investment, then mentors their recognition, nationally, internationally CEOs. It's work that connects to what Will has done at COA since joining the — all the while offering such a rich, board in 2007: chairing the finance committee, serving on the executive ever-changing, dynamic array of investment committee, the presidential search committee that brought in courses." Darron, and the strategic design committee. "I've enjoyed it immensely — there's a wonderful contagious curiosity and enthusiasm," he says. "I've been Will expects to continue immersing energized by my involvement." himself in the adventure that is COA, just as he hopes to join Darron next This is a time of momentum for the college, Will adds. "So many of the things summer on his second annual 28 that have been woven into COA's DNA from early on are front and center peaks in 24 hours hike. "COA is a little nationally and internationally: interdisciplinary work, field-based commitment bit addictive. Once you get involved, it to learning, global perspective, concern with the environment, balancing takes hold." And there it is again, that the arts and the sciences, even giving students a strong voice in running the boyish, conspiratorial grin. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 5 DELIRIOUS Nancy Andrews connects art to medical science and advocacy - By Donna Gold The very methods necessary "Six years ago, the ICU situation was for saving lives can also lead to barely spoken about," says Nancy. prolonged psychological trauma, Now doctors estimate that one- doctors and patients are discovering. third of ICU patients experience Hallucinations experienced in delirium conditions. Many also hospital intensive care units often find psychological and cognitive return to haunt patients, much as aftereffects lasting for months, even battle traumas disturb soldiers. years. The serious medical conditions Nancy Andrews, faculty member in that bring people into the ICU, film and video, combines art, science, combined with the drugs, breathing experience, and advocacy to explore tubes, continual light, noise, and entire the theme of delirium via drawings, loss of control, connect to the cause music, video, and a speaking series. of the delirium. Things are starting to She also created the graphic novella, change, however; many hospitals are Loupette and the Moon, a meditation instituting new protocols for their ICU on difference with an essay by COA patients. trustee Walter Robinson, MD. A creature clings to the stair railing inside Otter Creek SUITE LIMPET Hall. Another attempts to scale a wall. These brown, human-sized figures have human faces, and carry a The final episode in Dru Colbert's trilogy large, soft shell on their backs and curling antennae on of site-specific performances - By Donna Gold their heads. When one perches on a table six inches from me, I shudder. As cute as some of these massive Dru Colbert-created limpets are, I don't want one climbing on me. I scoot back in my ancient wooden 6 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE She is now working with her hanging between life and death, former surgeon and other and in the aftermath of surviving a professionals, along with the critical illness," she says. "A state of organization Artists in Context, delirium challenges the perception to find ways to help other ICU and understanding of reality, which survivors. Nancy has spoken at in our present dominant culture is conferences and toured with defined by rationalism and empiricism. doctors to expand explorations Reality, I think, is less stable than we into the connections between ICU delirium, recovery, subsequent like to believe. After believing my Nancy herself spent weeks in the ICU health - and art. Can artists hallucinatory experiences to be true, I in 2005. "In addition to my paranoid collaborate to synthesize art with realize there is almost no way to prove delusions of people trying to kill me," health and science into a coherent the reality of any moment how do we she writes on her website, "were whole? she wonders. know that we are not dreaming or in a hallucinations of ants on peoples' hallucination right now?" faces, weird things in my IV fluid bags, "In both my film On a Phantom nightmare-like hallucinations where I Limb and the comic Loupette and For more on Nancy Andrews' work, was variously stuck in the bottom of the Moon, I invite others to enter visit http://artandscienceofdelirium. a boat floating down an underground the in-between, fluid, unstable, wordpress.com. waterway (think Phantom of the Opera), fluctuating space that I inhabited or stuck in a well (think Silence of while in the intensive care unit, the Lambs)." Drawings by Nancy Andrews. folding chair as Jarly Bobadilla ambles biology, history, geography, and bridges. We walk, silenced, wondering; in. He announces that he's our guide to parapsychology as various voices the limpets have become upright, the world of Suite Limpet, the multimedia - some quite familiar - offer performing a courtly dance from the performance created by Dru, arts seemingly factual information on seventeenth century. What is real? faculty member, with Lisa Leaverton, limpets, fish shacks, consciousness who has taught performance at the sea monsters. Sea monsters? What is information but light playing college. on sensation? From all that we hear, We try to keep up, but I, at least, see, read, taste, smell, and feel, what Led by Jarly (a.k.a. COA's IT systems can't cope; I hear snippets of do we actually perceive? How does manager), we enter a mind-altering facts: a limpet finds its way by comprehension emerge? Did Dru build tour of coastal Maine, or more following its own slime trail and the stone tunnel for this performance? specifically Otter Creek, reeling through feel plunged into an oceanic Are the lights hidden behind trees as surf of information. To ground our bus returns to Otter Creek Hall myself, I focus on a projected those of twenty-first century homes? shadow image of a slide. Is there Might they be rusticators' tents? something there - - or is the Limpets camping in the woods? Maybe shadow caused by the light playing they are the bioluminescence of sea on the surface of the film? monsters crawling up from the deep? A bus arrives. We climb aboard, In the funny, surprising, unforgettable heading to the coast. Creatures visual and auditory collages of Suite dance by the road and limpets Limpet, Dru has deconstructed the peek at us as we peer through the familiar. And because nothing is dusk at surf a cliffside below. We at it seems, mystery illuminates disembark to the music of a brook comprehension. near one of Acadia's carriage road Photos by Nancy Andrews. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 7 Nathan Thanki '14 welcomes youth to the [Earth] workshop, The Future We Really Want, before the start of the Rio+20 conference in Brazil. [EARTH] TO RIO: THE FUTURE It began with frustration. Or, if you lack of action. Youth organizations at served corporations. Big Oil was winning look far back enough, with optimism. UN meetings are known for urgent over sustainable development — over In June, COA's international diplomacy and somewhat disruptive actions; poverty eradication, the protection of group, Earth in Brackets, or [Earth], these actions are a way for us to get biodiversity and everything else we sent a delegation to the United a message to the media, the rest cared about. We weren't the only ones Nations Conference on Sustainable of civil society (non-governmental upset and angry about this. At Rio+20, Development (Rio+20) because stakeholders), and the delegates members of civil society were largely we were optimistic. We were well- negotiating our futures. At Rio+20 unified with our sense of indignation, so prepared, thanks to months of there had been few such actions, [Earth] also reached out to friends and classes, meetings, and late-night though the need for them was clear, allies who weren't officially youth. policy analyses. We felt we could make so [Earth] invited youth to an open a difference. But during UN meetings, planning meeting. The text being Our message evolved: The future being optimism disappears to the corners negotiated at Rio+20 was titled "The bought was not the future we really of the mind, replaced by a sense Future We Want." It was charming, but wanted, and the future we wanted of purpose that is often driven by astoundingly misleading; what was involved solutions that civil society frustration. being negotiated was NOT the future could help provide. The action emerged we really wanted. as a media-friendly (and security- approved) skit with a symbolic tearing WHAT WE DO Negotiations were watering down up of "The Future We Bought," and an the text to little more than a (unapproved) people's plenary where The sit-in plenary and walk-out that decorative statement. Government we would hold an open discussion on took place on June 21 at Rio+20 representatives had forgotten to next steps. The skit brought us chaotic began with our frustration at the represent their citizens; instead they media frenzy and gave a clear message, 8 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE WE REALLY WANT By Mariana Calderon '13 but the plenary was our great success. negotiations, youth can denounce the between youth working in sustainable The group discussed hopes and fears false work of the delegates. Sending development and those in the and ideas. Emails were exchanged, civil young people to negotiations can biodiversity and climate regimes. In society interacted, and discontent and change what those delegates will November we will arrive at the United frustration were joined by the smallest come home to; youth empowered and Nations Framework Convention on beginnings of hope. Plans were made. emboldened at negotiations bring Climate Change in Doha, Qatar having their work back to their communities. already planned unified strategies Preparing for the meetings informs us and examined possible outcomes WHY WE DO IT about the real issues, environmental with other organizations — much as and political; being there provides official delegates do. This is the value Every student/activist/environmental real-life interactions with allies and of sending youth to international organization eventually asks the adversaries that tighten our strategies meetings. We can learn to fight just question: What's the point? Others ask and facilitate innovations in the way as well as the officials to push our us what kind of impact we could possibly we tackle problems. positions. We learn to fight for what have. But the reality is that future the world really needs. generations need representation and no This term, Earth in Brackets is diving one else can do it. Most negotiators will into a seventh year of participation in Mariana Calderon has focused on not be around to see the consequences international processes, having grown international environmental policy, of their decisions but today's youth in internal organization and external emphasizing biodiversity conservation. will, and when a hundred members of interactions. We are learning to work Her senior project will be a guide to UN environmental processes with a focus on civil society hand in badges and march more closely with a wider network of the connectivity between biodiversity, out of the conference center, we do people, and looking for the linkages conservation, sustainable development, have some sort of impact. By being at and partnerships that can be made and climate change. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 9 M RAC TOWARD AN EGALITARIAN INSTITUTION By Bill Carpenter, founding faculty member in literature and creative writing n the beginning we wanted to model the new college on principles of ecology. That meant, to us, that the smallest and least noticeable organisms played a role equal to the largest and most visibly powerful. It was important that every voice in our eco-community be equally heard and considered: students, faculty, and staff. This was a radical idea in higher education, which had a long history of hierarchic structure and top-down organization at which the untutored sat at the feet of learned professors who held both the questions and answers to be revealed. The beauty of our new subject, human ecology, was that no generation of established scholars existed yet; it was an island to which we were all immigrants. In that atmosphere a democracy of learning existed; as long as we refrained from stabilizing and codifying human ecology, it would keep its democratic flavor. But it's not easy. We now have the elements of hierarchy: an experienced faculty who have focused on human ecology for years, and incoming community members who arrive without preconception. Our ongoing challenge is to maintain our intellectual and structural egalitarian values in the face of internal and external pressure toward the division of labor and hierarchic structures that still dominate other colleges. We can do this by never allowing our subject to be fixed, avoiding textbooks and canons, anointing no individuals with absolute knowledge. As faculty we can actively decenter both our subject and ourselves and re-interrogate it from a new and open perspective on an annual basis, coinciding with the arrival of new students who will co-address a renewed human ecology with us on equal terms. We are all administrators, and we try to avoid locking in structures and procedures - even at the cost of efficiency - so each generation can re-envision them in their own light. Democracy is infectious. It will spread by contact if we maintain an atmosphere of trust and openness. And after living and working in a democratic setting at COA, our graduates carry these values into the world. It is the challenge we gave ourselves in the beginning and after forty years it remains as both our reality and our ideal. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 11 THE CLASSROOM REPUBLIC By Michael Griffith '09 magine for a moment that it is 1971, is lived, turned into a story, and democracy. But that changed, simply you are up to date on the body institutionalized. In Such a Frail Bark, because people got tired." Everybody counts coming out of Viet Nam, a COA oral history created by Bethany could not be involved with everything are contemplating a new idea called Aronow '83 for her senior project, that went on. Committees formed. "ecology," and you have heard about a the late Dan Kane, founding faculty Initially, it seems, everybody tried to strange, incipient college in Maine. You member in law, says, "There was participate in every committee, but write to a post office box in Bar Harbor no sense of hierarchy. There was a that too proved overwhelming - to express your interest; in a few weeks total equality among everyone there: classes had to be held, after all. a carefully typed prospectus arrives in students, trustees, faculty." According your mailbox. to Frail Bark, the thrill of institution- Recounts John March '76 in Frail building was overwhelming in those Bark, "Sometimes setting up the It reads like the inside of your heart. first years; the "energy and closeness" mechanisms by which we would Like you, the founders of College of people unprecedented, as early govern and evolve became so time- of the Atlantic feel the world must administrator Sam Eliot puts it. consuming that we reached the change. People must learn differently, Students who came for ecology found point where we said, 'Today I've gone act differently, to avoid destroying community democracy; practically from the Personnel Committee to the environment and themselves. everyone attended the weekly Town the Admissions Committee to the On page seven of the document: Meeting, a proto-All College Meeting. Steering Committee to the You "Students and faculty members are There, incoming students reviewed, know, I just want to be a student.' equally important members of the critiqued, and altered plans made by It would be so time-consuming to community." Administrators are a the faculty. Everyone's voice mattered. build the conceptual foundations of "necessary evil," present to facilitate the college we loved it But you the work of faculty and students, to In Frail Bark, beloved staff member wanted not to lose sight of why you live as teachers and learners, not Ann Peach characterizes the times: were there which was to get an defend "traditional systems" in the "Everybody wanted to be involved education." face of progress. You rescan the with everything that went on. And if page, but it doesn't change. Instead, they didn't like something, boy you If you were actually there, you might something inside you changes, and knew about it!" remember the moment when you soon you escape - your school, your chose to go to class or read a book job, whatever it is that is keeping you Meetings or Classes instead of attending another meeting. from learning what you want. Then reality intruded. According to The Arcadian myth the college inherits Ed Kaelber, COA's founding president, is one of perfect, direct democracy in Perhaps you were one of the first "There was a feeling at the beginning 1972, but Arcadia is not only paradise students. If so, you know all about of the college that it should be a sort lost, it is paradise-never-was. The mythology - how something great of pure rather than a representative entire community struggles with 12 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Bonnie Tai with her Experiential Education class. decisions born of a structure in which according to Bill Carpenter, founding opened for business, Paulo Freire's responsibilities for hiring faculty and faculty member in literature and revolutionary text, Pedagogy of the staff, for contract reviews, for deciding creative writing, young people find Oppressed, which taught us that the what to do with farms, and whom their voices. classroom was always political, and to admit are all shared by students, the teacher a potential oppressor, staff, and faculty. As faculty member If you have been here, you know this. had just been translated into English. in economics Davis Taylor says, It's a reality more encompassing than It was high time for an experiment in "Responsibility is neither concentrated myth. higher education. nor hoarded it is distributed across the community in a powerful and It began like this. During the first It's this meeting up on meaningful way." And yet, the time- summer of faculty planning, according uncommon ground that intensive nature of COA's experiment to Steve Katona, founding faculty in democratic structure has always member in biology and former unites everyone at COA; been a balancing act, for as much as president, "One of the main decisions we share in a fundamental students, faculty, and staff want to was trying to resolve how we would have a say, they also have other work approach learning. Was it going to instability. to do. be didactic or Socratic lectures, or was it going to be learning by doing?" Learning as Conversation An Experiment in Higher Education Clearly, the latter won out - in every While most courses operated as But governance is not the only subject area. Scientists would teach seminars, lectures happened, but democratic realm. While COA has in the field, which meant relating these might be in the field, or with steadily evolved through community to students as fellow researchers; a particular emphasis on practical - and inevitably, executive - philosophers would do philosophy application. Some seminars were decision-making, a more radical with their students, not teach a explicitly political, focusing on social revolution has occurred in the hardened history. The learning-by- justice and modeling non-violent classroom. There, every single doing model reflected ideas of the communication in the classroom; term since that first year, a few time which remain current: that we others were blissfully apolitical in dozen republics have formed and learn through concrete experiences in their explorations of art, psyche, self. faded: human scale experiments in our environments. Through trial and This continues today. A student might democracy and egalitarianism. In error. Through creative, integrative move from a seminar table, where hundreds of COA courses authority thinking. Through peer collaboration. she is responsible for keeping afloat is challenged, established norms are But the ideas of John Dewey and Maria discussion on Absalom, Absalom!, resisted, critique is alive, and as in Montessori had not been thoroughly to a lecture - but one taking place the sixties and seventies, "when the applied in the context of an American on COA's new boat, Osprey. In both elders learned from the youngers," liberal arts college. When COA spaces she has an active role to play in COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 13 opening for students to find their confidence and authority. That's intellectual democracy as I see it." Human ecology can be a useful foil in the process of disassembling hierarchy. "If you reach out of your field a little bit, and stick your neck out and then make clear that that's what is happening and you can sacrifice your own ascendency, then students will see it happening" - and join the fray. If a teacher of literature can talk about painting, or the politics of oil, why shouldn't a student of painting or politics speak up about Hamlet? It's this meeting up on uncommon ground that unites everyone at COA; Students dissect fruit in the Edible Botany course taught by biology faculty member we share in a fundamental instability. Nishanta Rajakaruna '94. Highlighting that, reveling in it, instructors can make an adventure of intellectual life - bringing students constructing learning as conversation people can actually deal with them, along for the bumpy, interdisciplinary, - and yes, debate. Dialogue is the because that's when we can learn." egalitarian ride. value that unites democrats and Do students love an assigned radicals, seminars and lectures, elders reading? Hate it? In Karen's seminars, Says Bill, "Small groups are best for and youngers. opinions are guideposts to deeply that. One-on-one is not the ideal, held commitments that would not be because in some ways it contributes Karen Waldron, Lisa Stewart Chair revealed - and questioned - in more to hierarchy: someone has to give. in Literature and Women's Studies, conventional settings. "I honestly I think the most fun is when you is known for facilitating fascinating, respect student opinions, so if open-ended discussions. "At COA we someone says a book is boring, I really teach all the things that you teach try to figure out why it's boring to her at another college or university, but or him as opposed to saying, 'Well, it we don't teach them as derivative or couldn't possibly be boring because of imitative, we teach them essentially the scintillating language." She wants to the purpose of - 'What does a students to be excited by scintillating student need to learn?'" language, of course, but on their own terms, in their own time. Continues Karen, "I have ideas about what students need to learn, but their For some students, this is a big ideas of what they need to learn are change. Says Bill, "The teachers very relevant to me, so we engage in a and the curriculum [at COA] have to negotiation of 'What do you want out actively fight because people come of this class?' versus what I can give out of high schools where there are Photo by Becca Haydu '16. you and what I think you actually need strict hierarchies and you essentially to be an adult in the world - but you have to dismantle the incoming, may not know that you need. How can internalized structure." To accomplish I be an elder or mentor or authority this, instructors must sometimes "My job as a teacher is to without being authoritative? Mostly sacrifice their rights as "elders." When I do that by just making a space for asked a question in a seminar, Karen provide enough comfort in every voice and trying to draw people might answer, "I don't know. What do uncomfortable situations out." you think?" that people can actually deal Of course, a multiplicity of voices Intellectual Democracy with them - because that's can clash; but that's part of learning. Bill goes even further. "You've got when we can learn." Says Karen, "My job as a teacher to allow yourself to be wrong as a is to provide enough comfort in teacher," he says, even if it comes at Karen Waldron, faculty member uncomfortable situations that great embarrassment. "It leaves an in literature 14 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE get a small group, when matters of aesthetics can be decided by a majority vote rather than a teacher's authority. If the teacher doesn't get it, if somebody else gets it, then that's really important. I would like to see COA organize the whole second half of the student's education on a tutorial basis." No matter the shape of the classroom, or the mood of an educational encounter, according to Bill, "We create an environment of open and mutual inquiry, in which students are expected to participate as equals." Different But Equal? Bill Carpenter teaches his tutorial in novel writing. But what about differences? How can first-years from Valley High School, transfers from Vassar College, and internationals from UWC Adriatic be and democracy are addressed in engine of democracy. This gives the effectively taught in the same Core practice, on a human scale. Says classroom a democratic advantage. Course? How does an instructor Karen, "You can do in your classroom, Shouldn't we push for the same facilitate first- and fourth-years in the what you want to model for the world: advantage in ACM, where there is same discussion? to teach not just the material, but the so much untapped potential for skills to engage with the material and community learning? "How do you empower those with other people in such a way that it students who are more familiar is hopefully going to spread out." In an ideal world COA would learn with a topic to be constructive from the classrooms it creates. From leaders without creating a new set these tiny republics would spread the of power relationships?" asks Jamie memory of a radical moment in the McKown, James Russell Wiggins nineteen-seventies: one in which we Could We Be More Egalitarian? Chair in Government and Polity. knew the world must change. Back Life changing. World changing. College "Egalitarianism is a nice thing to be then there were no precursors, just changing? Education is not the only striving towards, but asymmetries democratic realm. It's time to consider potential - a feeling you still get develop over time." These must be in any new COA course, where the the gulf between the classroom faced down, attended to, understood. syllabus is just a rough sketch waiting republic and the college that created The legacy of Freire and the era of it. While our educational model to be filled in by everyone around the identity politics is that equality cannot table. Let's aim for that same feeling in continues to offer flexibility for growth be easily assumed. everything we do. and change, it is being outpaced by artist collectives, community Adds Bonnie Tai, faculty member After all, if we believe that democracy organizations, and Occupy - groups in educational and human studies, is integral to the message of human that have helped mobilize a new "There are always issues of cultural ecology we hope to deliver to the generation's desire for change. differences and linguistic barriers in world, shouldn't we get it right here, terms of who's willing to participate first? In the upcoming year we should ask and have an influence on the ourselves: Are cultural differences and classroom discourse, and I think that Now that would be world changing. linguistic barriers routinely addressed, impacts one's potential influence." negotiated, and surmounted in our system of governance? Are the After teaching for two years at United At their best, COA courses address the decision-making processes World College Mahindra College, Michael issues that influence egalitarianism. Griffith '09 spent a "gap year" back at COA, transparent? The ACM (All College Around tables and on boats and in where he was inspired by the ideas and Meeting) operating model is lengthy, fields, teachers and students refine energy of students eager to implement its language confusing. Critique is the lessons of Occupy at COA. He is now what it means to teach, learn, and act too often marked as negative and set studying English literature at King's College in the world, negotiating spaces where London. aside - and yet in education critique mutual cooperation, egalitarianism, is part of the process of learning, the COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 15 STUDENT PERSPECTIVES Students Reflect on Democracy at COA Based on conversations with Michael Griffith '09 Katie Perry '12 Former All College Meeting moderator Hometown: Raleigh, North Carolina Senior Project: Neuropsychology COA is not a political institution; it is ways. Attending ACM or participating an educational one. That it is some in committees are just a few of the community members' jobs to be ways that a community member can educated on certain issues and make have an impact and effect change. If certain decisions, complicates things. being involved in governance speaks to people, then they will show up to While many decisions are made in ACM. such a way that any member of the community could have a say, others I would say that classes at COA are are relegated to the board only, or the most egalitarian - overall - of to faculty meetings, etc. And many any academic setting that I have decisions are made not through votes experienced. Again, I think there - although the operating model is a balance to be struck between does use a voting system for officially recognizing the expertise and insight passing policies - but through that professors have to share, and discussion and consensus. giving students a legitimized voice in class such that faculty can continue I don't see the aim of COA's structure learning, listening, and being as being democracy. Rather, I think challenged. After all, the egalitarian the goal is striking a balance between element of our educational approach having a structure that is functional also demands the same level of and one that is educational. I think a learning from our faculty that we ask lot more can be learned from coming of our students. to a decision via consensus than from counting votes; from challenging COA has amazing ideals and I oneself to hear equally the opinions perceive the cobbled-together of all community members and from governance structure as a sincere having to really understand the effort to reflect those ideals. But it complexity of an issue, than from just is also crucial to recognize that the passing off the decision to someone inequalities and hierarchies of the who "knows more about it." But those larger culture are present here as benefits have to be balanced out by well, not because we intentionally actually accomplishing things that embrace them, but because we are need to get done. so fundamentally shaped by them. When our community - classes, I do think that the ideal of committees, and all - is at its best, egalitarianism is more important than it is an institution of learning where how many people show up to ACM on we have the opportunity to examine, any given Wednesday. As someone challenge, and be challenged by those who has been every different level larger systemic inequalities rather of engaged and disengaged with than ignoring, denying, or establishing Photos by Becca Haydu '16. governance here, I see that people them as the status quo. find a voice in the community in many 16 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Hiyasmin Saturay '15 Hometown: Oriental Mindoo, Philippines and Utrecht, The Netherlands Focus: Education, Art, Humanities I think the seminar-style classroom what other people's ideas were. I think a microcosm (which I feel is kind of of COA allows me to get the most out everyone should encourage each fixed), where the classroom is part of of the classes I take. It allows for a other to share their work! the larger COA community and COA focused discussion that is not based is part of another bigger community. on one professor or lecturer's point Having democracy in the classroom, The same goes for values - the values of view, but allows the students to having people speak out as well instilled in the classroom contribute process information in their own as listen to others, contributes to to values in the bigger community. ways, based on their own experiences democracy as a whole. If people It also goes the other way - the and ideas. More importantly, it allows are used to practicing democracy in values of the community - say the students and professors to share their the classroom and if they see and USA - also influence the values of thoughts, thus advancing discussions understand that it works, I think they COA, and those of the classroom. So further and giving more breadth and will also apply these values outside, I think if we want democracy to work, depth to them through the contention and hopefully speak out in cases we should work on it in all aspects of of different ideas. It works most of of attacks on democracy. I think of our lives. Speaking out and listening the time. I once had a classmate who the classroom's relationship to the to others should not only be applied asked if she could read other people's "ideal community" as more of an in the classroom, but also in the larger papers because she wanted to know ongoing process of democracy than communities we have around us. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 17 Angeline Annesteus '13 translates to an egalitarian spirit Hometown: Port au Prince, Haiti among students and faculty; however Focus: International Affairs and COA still needs to experiment with Environmental Issues collaborative models that can boost engagement. It's great that COA Being part of a community where provides everyone - and particularly I can freely express my ideas and students - with a fair environment opinions is huge. In Haitian culture, where they can help establish their it's more likely that your parents or own rules and find someone to your teachers decide on your behalf understand their needs and identify what is best for you. As a student your their strengths, but so much openness voice can barely be heard; teachers can be difficult for some. How do maintain complete authority in we define and encourage personal classroom and school affairs. So to me responsibility? Only by asking this democratic values are what make COA question can COA hope to become a unique school both academically more democratic, or achieve a and administratively. I feel that the decision-making process fairly shared more students get involved in their by all. studies and COA decision making, the better they get to know faculty and the more they are engaged in Benjamin Hitchcock '15 changing their life and making the Hometown: Reading, Massachusetts world a better place. Concentration: Education, Life Sciences Of course, there is still plenty of room for improvement in terms of When I first got here, I was incredibly becoming truer to our mission and excited about the ACM model. I went working in the larger world. I think to a public school that was totally the democratic spirit of the institution disempowering - was virtually organizing. In smaller student impossible to speak to anyone with meetings and in certain classes you any authority. So the idea of everyone see some very intentional facilitating, meeting together weekly to discuss and we can carry that back into the issues and make collective decisions ACM model, making sure that there is was thrilling. consideration for everyone regardless of age, confidence levels as a speaker, My engagement in COA governance gender. If we could try having circle peaked in my first year when Margaret discussions - just being able to Fetzer '15 looked into where the see people's facial expressions, and college had invested its endowment. being able to sense where people are A group of students were really at, at all times, would make a huge shocked by what she found: a lot difference. And obviously, in a circle of the investments were in really there's no single point of focalized doubtful mega-corporations, from energy. "big pharma" and energy to Walmart, Nestlé, and Coca-Cola. It seemed COA makes a genuine effort to hear hypocritical and disconcerting to us, student voices, way more so than so we formed the Prudent Investment most other educational institutions. Group to gently lobby the board of We're really fortunate. At some larger trustees to consider something like schools, students have had zero socially responsible investing, or more traction in getting their voices heard. local investment, while pushing for Here, we're able to see progress and greater transparency and student meet and even collaborate with those involvement. in power. The degree to which COA is open is extraordinary; I've now joined I'd like to see COA learn from Steering Committee with the hope of Occupy and traditions of horizontal influencing ACM's direction. 18 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE ALL COLLEGE MEETING COA STUDENTS & INSTITUTIONAL GOVERNANCE Offering the entire community the opportunity to be part of COA's operation is the prime directive of ACM. Each Wednesday, students, faculty, and staff weigh in on issues that range from prospective faculty appointments, to the impact of enrollment increases, to COA's carbon offset policy, to various campus rules. Since there's a constant influx of students, certain topics tend to resurface as new students question prior decisions. Regardless of the topic, a powerful byproduct of COA's governance structure is that students learn to speak their minds, to listen to others, and to find healthy compromises. The graphic below follows one recurring topic from 1977 to 1998, as reported in the Off The Wall (OTW), the student-produced newspaper. Prior to email, all ACM proposals first had to be published in OTW for community review. MEAT AT COA DOES IT OFFER ARE WE PREVENTING IS IT ENVIRONMENTALLY IS IT ECONOMIC? GOOD NUTRITION? FREEDOM OF CHOICE? SUSTAINABLE? CHRONOLOGY OF A TOPIC 1972 - VEGETARIAN MEALS FOR ALL "WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?" 1991 - TAKE-A-BREAK (TAB) SERVES BACON: "MMMM, MEAT." FIRST MEAT ON CAMPUS "HAVING MEAT CONFORMS COA TO OUTSIDE CONSUMER SOCIETY." Revised 1992 - VEGETARIAN POLICY "BUT, I LIKE MEAT." "TAB IS LOSING MONEY. WE HAVE THE RESPONSIBILITY TO EAT IN TAB." 1996 - LARGEST ACM TO DATE: DISCUSSES MEAT POLICY OTW FRONT COVER: HACKSAW SLICES Lets Eat Meat! CHUNK OF MEAT Revised PROPOSAL ON GREENING THE KITCHEN "SHOULD WE FORCE PEOPLE INTO VEGETARIANISM?" "VEGETABLES CAN BE UNSUSTAINABLE TOO." "WELL, SHOULD THE COLLEGE BUY MEAT?" "CAN WE 'MEAT' IN THE MIDDLE?' "THE MEAT INDUSTRY IS UN-ECOLOGICAL." Revised 1998 - PROPOSAL FOR CONSCIOUSLY PURCHASED MEAT (2012 - COA'S FARMS RAISE LIVESTOCK FOR TAB) FIDO OTHER RECURRING ACM TOPICS HAVE INCLUDED: PETS ON CAMPUS VENDING MACHINES SMOKING Information compiled by Leelah Holmes '15 and Danielle Meier '08. Illustrations by Danielle Meier '08. Human Ecologists Practice Democracy Across the Globe Stories by Sarah Haughn '08 What Counterterrorism Really Looks Like: Jessica Glynn '06, Esq. dvocacy was never a choice for "I am fortunate to live in a A you're advocating for. I try to be feminist, activist lawyer Jessica democracy," says Jessica. "If I lived mindful of my own agenda. I try to be Glynn. From pro bono asylum in many other parts of the world I'd conscious that in a lot of ways I don't work in Texas to her former position probably be in jail or dead. It's really speak directly for the community I at the grassroots Servicios Para El satisfying when things do go right represent. I come from a position Avance de la Mujer, or SEPA Mujer, in in our system. You see at least one of privilege. I am a white woman New York, Jessica fights for de facto person given some relief and an from Wisconsin with a law degree. congruity between people and their opportunity to rebuild their lives in Regardless of how much I express my rights to personhood, between lives a way not possible in a lot of parts of displeasure with our government, I and the laws that should protect them. the world." will not be imprisoned or tortured. My "I have always been an advocate," she struggle is not my client's struggle. says. "The law felt like a very intuitive, But Jessica also worries about the structured medium for my activism legislative implications of the "far- "I work with an amazing team of social after COA." right's stunningly cohesive anti- workers; we talk about race, privilege, immigrant, anti-woman, anti-gay and class. Sometimes they say things I In her current role as supervising movement." don't want to hear about how I relate attorney for the anti-trafficking to my clients, my work. Acknowledging program at New York City's Safe She is concerned that two federal this is humbling." Horizon - the country's largest laws protecting these vulnerable victims' services agency - Jessica populations - the Violence Against Rooted in Latin notions of voice, the represents survivors of human Women Act (VAWA) and the Trafficking word advocate - meaning to witness, trafficking who have been subjected Victims Protection Act (TVPA) - are in to guide toward justice - follows to extreme labor exploitation. These danger of not being reauthorized. "It Jessica across six hundred years of may be men or women who were will be a tragedy for our democracy history and horizon. In a twenty-first forced to work as domestic servants if a victim cannot seek help because century still fraught with fifteenth by diplomats, kept in slave-like they are an immigrant and reporting century oppressions of voice and conditions in the hospitality industry the crime committed against them will body, Jessica's feminist work is or agricultural sector, or forced into result in deportation," she says. arguably as important as ever before. prostitution. She also offers training and legal assistance for a variety of Essential to Jessica's legal advocacy For more on the reauthorization of VAWA agencies, from community-based work is self-reflexivity. "Your and the TVPA, visit 4VAWA.org. Above, organizations to high-level law perception of how an issue should be Jessica Glynn '08 becomes a member of enforcement groups, including the addressed may be different from that the bar in her home state of Wisconsin. Federal Bureau of Investigation. of the actual community member Having returned to the United States from literary journeys through Italy, Turkey, and Uganda, Sarah Haughn '08 now freelances from California as a poet, a journalist, and the mother of a delightfully spirited two-year-old. 20 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Let's Stop Just Talking About Human Rights: Dominic Muntanga '04 say Zimbabwe, you say Mugabe. But should we? For Dominic Muntanga, who Currently conducting fund-raising and has worked as a World Bank consultant and advisor to Zimbabwe's Minister of a feasibility study, Dominic is exploring Education, the cry "Dictator!" has regrettably displaced a far more important a connection to other schools with an conversation. approach to education that integrates liberal arts learning with values, life Our focus, he asserts, should not tune to one leadership. We need to examine skills, and fitness. the mechanisms of democracy: how do we create a system that nurtures what is good and ensures that everyone can participate? For this Davis United World College scholar whose own education radically "If you're an African and you're out of the continent, it's very easy to find changed his life, his guiding vision solutions to a lot of complex problems. Chances are most of the time you're is profoundly straightforward. "Let actually wrong, because whatever problem there is, it largely has to do with the us create the right environment for dynamics, the relationships - with people," says Dominic. global citizens to come not just from New York, but to come from a village "Every African who comes to the United States who is interested in making in Zimbabwe." a difference on the continent should take time to go home and work in an institution and get frustrated. Get to where you're going to jump off the bridge. That's very good for your health because it helps you understand the levers of power, the mechanics of how things function, and how to make things work or not work." People in power, Dominic believes, often have good intentions and share similar aspirations with the rest of the country. "So, how is it that collectively we end up with a dysfunctional system, poor healthcare, poor education, and economies, when each one of us wants what is good?" he asks. At the end of the day, Dominic has learned it is not the people who are necessarily always bad, but the systems - the bureaucracies - that often stunt governments' progress. Dominic's experience in educational reform within the World Bank and the government of national unity led by Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai convinced him to revisit the efficacy of community-based endeavors. "When we talk about democracy in theoretical terms, people talk about voting. But when you talk about it in practical terms, you need an infrastructure that allows for a democracy to function. And one of those building blocks for that infrastructure is education. Democracy thrives when everybody participates meaningfully, when people are actually able to make a contribution to the country. Education facilitates that." So Dominic is starting a school. Embracing research from neuroscience and education, Dominic envisions an institution in his hometown of Victoria Falls that teaches for a multiplicity of intelligences - harnessing the educational power of the arts and athletics as well as traditional academics. He plans to develop a global, interdisciplinary model for education - with primary and secondary school curricula as well as adult and community learning opportunities. He will also draw on the expertise of many well-educated, successful professionals who tour the natural beauty of Victoria Falls. People come to enjoy the environment, he explains, but the communities they visit seldom benefit. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 21 The Changing Climate of Governance in the Maldives: Hajja Naseem '10 AFRICA n the Maldives - one of the world's most climate-vulnerable countries - there is the climate and there is also The Climate. The twelve hundred islands that form the Maldives are located just south of Sri Lanka, and embraced by both the Arab Sea and the Indian Ocean. Following the February 2012 ousting of then- President Mohamed Nasheed, threats of weather-born catastrophes have melded with political and economic upheaval. As project coordinator for Transparency International's climate finance investigation in the Maldives, Hajja Naseem's work situates her in the midst of this storm. At Transparency International - a global civil society organization known for its fight against corruption - Hajja works with a team to map climate financial aid received by the Maldives. Interviewing government agencies and sensitizing local stakeholders, her group determines how donor resources are used, which mechanisms render the aid usable, and to what extent the aid benefits the country's most vulnerable communities. "The project has been particularly of dollars implementing the project, "Time and again, we've seen the eye-opening for me as it was a they found that it was too far from fallaciousness of decision-making first-hand glimpse at the dangers the islanders' homes for regular use. processes that discount citizen of how white-shirted policy wonks The project was shut down, a failure voices." in government may sometimes be ascribed to a lack of consultation with completely removed from local the local community prior to design Growing up in the Maldives, Hajja sentiments," she says. and implementation. claims a deeply personal stake in her country's governance. She comes Hajja recalls a time when a multilateral "My own personal belief is that from a long line of family members agency funded a town dump on one effective climate adaptation is vocal against the thirty-year rule of of the Maldives' outer islands. After impossible without democratic autocratic Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. spending three years and millions structures of governance," she says. The democratic elections that brought 22 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE SOLOMON SLC SLOVAKIA PANAMA PALAU MALDIVES in President Nasheed in 2008 led demanding accountability. Her fear is wrongs.' This is the basic social to increased aid and investment, a that many independent institutions contract - the essence of democracy money trail she is responsible for in the Maldives are too politicized is that this contract be honored. following, even after the 2011 coup by to assert much resistance with the People like me ensure, in their small Gayoom's vice president, Mohammed populace. way, that governments are doing what Waheed Hassan. they are supposed to be doing." "Governments are legitimate insofar The current instability renders it as they reflect the popular will, and "Democracy is dynamic, because the difficult for Hajja to investigate the legitimacy is accorded to those that world is dynamic. It's an ecological efficacy of climate aid. Still, Hajja work in the public interest," asserts system, with the push and pull of believes people working in civil society Hajja. "Governments provide certain dynamic diverse interests." must keep asking questions and public goods and regulate 'public COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 23 Education After Hours: Career & Community Building in Public Schools with Amy Hoffmaster '06 f education professes to create relationships between economically "Educational policy frames the work - engaged citizens, why not engage disadvantaged students and and the pendulum that dictates what citizen professionals in education? economically empowered adults. The is 'effective' - dramatically," Amy Amy Hoffmaster, program design model forms strong partnerships notes. "In many ways, the country's manager in the National Program between communities and their recent focus on STEM education and Department at Citizen Schools, does schools, and eases student transitions workforce development supports just this. into high school, encouraging higher our apprenticeship model and has graduation rates. inspired professionals to involve Citizen Schools is a non-profit themselves more deeply in the school organization that offers low- "Inviting citizens to participate in community and the lives of students." income middle school students school communities not only deepens the opportunity to learn from the conversation about students' She'd like to see this system become professionals across public, private, part of the fabric of all urban schools. futures, the need for education and civic sectors in on-campus, after- reform, and the challenges facing school programs across the nation. "We, as an organization, are teachers and school communities," increasingly guided by recent work With an MEd from Harvard and Amy says, "it also provides incredible that shows what used to be seen as access to ideas and networks of extensive experience in educational a racial gap in education attainment development, Amy joined the professional adults, and fosters a is much more closely related to class Boston-based Citizen Schools in belief in possible career and civic and money," she says. 2011. She came in as an Education futures for students." Pioneers Fellow, writing curricula to As part of a pioneering non-profit prepare professionals working in the Her work to document, research, and organization focused on education STEM fields of science, technology, refine the organization's core model reform, Amy recognizes that engineering, and math to engage in takes the daily experience of students professionals in positions of power hands-on projects with students. in their classroom seriously. She seeks need to understand students' lives to examine educational legislation at just as much as students need to Amy resonates with Citizen Schools' both state and community levels in know how to access that power. Her apprenticeship model that builds relation to actual classroom success. work advances both. 24 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE The Way of the Countryside with Ashlesha Khadse '08 t the grassroots core of "I have learned that it is important to black and white - there are all kinds A democratic struggles stands understand where people are. Change of contradictions in the real world," the fight for food sovereignty: can only begin from where people she says. "There are conflicts within the ability to determine and nourish are - not from where I think people movements, and conflicts between our own bodily survival as well as that should be." movements seemingly fighting for of our communities, our posterity; the same thing. There are divisions a struggle to make our food system Currently, Ashlesha is involved with between different classes in the socially just, culturally diverse, and La Via Campesina's agroecological agrarian society, and some sections environmentally sustainable; to let all conversion of chemical farms to are more marginalized than others. humanity take control of what we eat organic systems - drawing upon the It's important to aim for democracy, and how we produce our food. wisdom of local seeds and knowledge. but also to realize that it's a long-term She and her team are documenting process, one which can't be handed to Ashlesha Khadse works for La a successful "zero-budget natural people like a vote." Via Campesina, an international farming" movement in south India movement bringing small-scale consisting of as many as four million food producers together to defend farmers. This method of farming sustainable agriculture. strives to end dependence on expensive external inputs and debt, In her position as a technical producing high-quality food while also assistant for the movement across improving the environment and health South Asia, Ashlesha facilitates the of farmers. implementation of collective political decisions made by regional farmer In India, where farmers are taking movements. Though much of her their own lives at an average rate of work is administrative - attending every half hour due to indebtedness, meetings, fundraising, managing this approach empowers people communications, and preparing for to employ reserves of local or press conferences - she also visits indigenous knowledge, wisdom that the countryside. There, she joins is often sidelined by the government. dramatic protests and connects to It also allows farmers to function global farmer movements - including successfully outside the control of the those in Maine. This work has built an chemical and seed corporations that internal bridge between the idealism have increasingly sought to render she gained during her college years them dependent on their products. and the complex, often dissonant realities of social change. Ashlesha finds her work both challenging and inspiring. Growing "As a newcomer I expected most up in a middle-class family, earning members to be automatically oriented an elite education, and traveling toward organic farming, to be gender extensively have allowed her clarity sensitive and politically sensitive," and courage, as well as moments of she says. "But in reality most deep learning. Citing the idealism farmers were using chemicals. They of her years at the Mahindra UWC were conservative. Often, there were and COA, and her experience in the no women in leadership positions." heart of an international farmers' movement, Ashlesha explains how This work has changed both necessary it is to embrace democratic Ashlesha's mind and her methodology change as both revolution and - convincing her of the often evolution. Above: Ashlesha Khadse '08 participates inefficient, but consistently beneficial in a climate caravan with farmers and members of La Via Campesina. practices of inclusiveness, consensus, "It takes time, effort, and practice to and participation. build democracy. Things are not so COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 25 Chemical Security MR. CHARP Peter CKER King At a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee in 2011, Greenpeace delivered a letter to the committee chair, Rep. Peter King (R-NY), urging him to stop supporting the petro-chemical industry's hijacking of chemical security legislation. As part of the protest, John Deans '07 held up a sign labeling Congressman King a "Chemical Security Hijacker." n the still-dark Orwellian O shadow of Bhopal - residing looks into the more diffuse, daily dawn of December 3, 1984, a dangerously close to one of almost impact of chemicals ubiquitous in plume of poisonous gas from five hundred chemical facilities, each our lives and homes - in our couch a United States-owned Union Carbide putting more than 100,000 residents cushions and lipsticks, as she says. pesticide plant asphyxiated Bhopal, at risk of a chemical disaster. That "Many chemicals that are linked India. Thousands perished. Suffering these plants still use highly hazardous to birth defects, cancer, obesity, persists. substances is outrageous, says John, learning disabilities are already in especially when much safer chemicals most people's bloodstream - as well For John Deans, lead toxics and modes of operation are available as women's breast milk," she says. At campaigner at Greenpeace in and affordable. the Environmental Health Strategy Washington, DC, the tragedy points to Center, Emily works to replace the a dangerously flawed political system While the US amended the Clean most dangerous chemicals, such as where corporate money eclipses Air Act in 1990 to include what is BPA, with safer alternatives through public safety. His policy work draws known as the "Bhopal amendment" ground-breaking state policy. She also attention to the flaw and how it might - preventing release of dangerous advocates for comprehensive policy be fixed. toxins - the legislation has never reform on a federal level. been fully implemented. John works "Somebody who wants to smoke can with a coalition of more than one "Environmental health issues, from choose to put that into their lungs. A hundred organizations calling on the the Bhopal disaster to the toxic person can choose to imbibe alcohol. Obama administration to enforce the chemicals found in our bloodstreams, But a power plant or chemical facility program. expose the trade-off we're making as can spew pollutants and you don't get a society when we give corporations to choose. You are subject to it. In a Emily Postman deals with similar more power than citizens," Emily democracy you should not have those issues in her work with Maine's says. "Their profits increase, and bad decisions made for you," he says. Environmental Health Strategy Center, our poorest and most vulnerable famous for its campaign against the populations get sicker, even though According to John, one in three people use of the toxic synthetic estrogen a clear bipartisan majority of the in the US live under the interminable bisephonal A, or BPA. Emily's work American public wants reform." 26 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE (t)Oxic Democracy: Chemicals, Corruption, and What's in Our Blood The work of John Deans '07 and Emily Postman '11 Emily is encouraged that in July, amendment as a fix to the country's "There's no panacea. No silver bullet," after years of citizen organizing and risky chemical conundrum. Following John says, acknowledging at once advocacy, the Safe Chemicals Act John's numerous meetings with the necessity and frustration of passed out of committee and onto the EPA, Department of Homeland policy work. "Democracy is dynamic, the Senate floor. According to the Security, and the White House Council because the world is dynamic. It's an Chicago Tribune - whose investigation on Environmental Quality, he finds ecological system, with the push and of toxic flame retardants captured encouragement in this development. pull of dynamic diverse interests." Congressional attention - the act Emily agrees. "There's a lot of work overhauls a toothless 1976 Toxic John is convinced that democracy to be done," she says, "but it makes Substances Control Act, giving the works best when people with common me hopeful to see that even in this federal government more power interests come together to fight for political climate, with income inequity to forcibly regulate more than something that matters. While his still rising, the mobilization of moms, 84,000 chemicals commercially involvement with resistance and doctors, nurses, teachers, and used countrywide. Working with the lobbying efforts toward toxic chemical ordinary people across the country Environmental Health Strategy Center, regulation shows promise, he also has a power that the highest-paid Emily recently joined a busload of acknowledges the long, slow road lobbyist will never command." mothers, nurses, and activists to that is policy work. Two decades after discuss chemical reform with Maine the Bhopal amendment was written, Visit www.thenation.com and search for Senators Olympia Snow and Susan it has yet to be realized. How much John Deans to read more about his work. Collins in DC. the EPA will accomplish during the political precariousness of an election For more on Maine's Environmental John also sees a glimmer of hope for year remains uncertain, but John Health Strategy Center, visit chemical reform. After some twenty will continue to pressure the Obama preventharm.org. years of dormancy, the Environmental administration, regardless of the Protection Agency recently indicated political winds. renewed interest in the Bhopal Emily Postman '11 (with sunglasses on her head) listens while a constituent tells Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), on the far right of the photo, about the need for chemical reform. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 27 verizon Tax LOPHOL Tax Dodger photos by Erik McGregor. Maypole photo courtesy of Becky Wartell '09. Tax Dodgers, Occupy, and the Baseball Hall of Fame The Tax Dodgers, our street performance group, uses baseball to explain how corporations exploit loopholes to control taxes. I'm a cheerleader with the Corporate Loopholes squad. At the Occupy national gathering in Philadelphia the Tax Dodgers played a game against The 99 Percent and paid off the umpire to win. And when Mitt Romney came to Fenway Park we performed outside the stadium. Our uniform is in the Baseball Hall of Fame! Occupy has been an incredible learning experience and networking opportunity. I've been there since the beginning, September 17, 2011, and I've made connections with some of the most talented, passionate organizers of my generation, people I'm going to be organizing with for the rest of my life. The metaphor for Occupy that I have been using recently is that it's like a dandelion puff: we've grown together from the same roots and now the seeds are spreading. I see other movements - the student debt movement, the anti-fracking movement, the fight against Citizens United - taking some of what we've learned at Occupy to make them even stronger. Occupy is everywhere because Wall Street is everywhere. It's completely human ecology - everything is interconnected. - Becky Wartell '09 (pictured at far right at top; far left at bottom) 28 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Praxinoscope 5 -Bicycle wheel, cookie tins, flange, flashing, mirrors, and paint, 21/2x1 ft. The Personal, Political, Mysterious Work of Ariel Springfield '06 My art explores many questions, including those of language, identity, and the systems of understanding them. I am especially concerned with opening up definitions in language to encompass those who do not conform, and with addressing power dynamics - not by relocating the power, but by dispersing it - by valuing the roles of contradiction, myth, and synchronicity in society. This is what I contemplate when I am working with wood, fibers, and sequins; understanding them as elements of a body, symbols of a system. I am constantly collecting found objects. They interest me because of the history they hold and the stories they tell. In this way they remind me of bodies. I relate to the fibers of wood, wool, and steel as representations of the body. The ability of an object to be itself and simultaneously represent something else is very powerful to me. It plays an inherent role in my understanding of queer identity. It is not that I believe the contradiction of simultaneous states creates a conflict, but rather that it opens up language and definition. The sculptures on these pages explore the idea of home as myth. I am interested in narratives and myths because they are interpretations of an experience. They attempt to explain realities that are complex and conflicted. The Praxinoscope (literally "action-maker") is an early form of animation. It operates through the use of mirrors that reflect a series of images in a rotating canister, creating the illusion of motion. By segmenting movement into stills and reanimating it, a visual myth is created. - Ariel Springfield Durrant '06 Above: Five Hairy Objects - Shaving brush, miniature yarn ball, human hair, paint brush head, fur wad, all smaller that 2x2 in. From Five Objects and a Story: Group Show, curated by Emmett Ramstad. Photo by Torreya Cummings. Opposite top: Praxinoscope 2 - Wood, sequins, mirrors, lazy Susan, hand drill, and scrap metal, 1½2 ft, Bottom: Praxinoscopes 1 & 2 - Spring-form pan, metal dish, lazy Susan, drawer handles, mirrors, and fur. Both from Best Revenge: Group Show, curated by Caitlin Sweet and Lex Non Scripta. All photos of this series by Ariel Springfield Durrant '06. 30 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE S 9 A MAN IS NOT A STAR [SILVERADO] by Josie Sigler '94 A man does not set himself on fire. Of course, a man pays no A man works. Strapped to the attention to art, and his soul certainly ceiling, dangling over a half-made does not slip a bit in his chest over truck, he welds, he solders, twelve a damned painting. But maybe he hours, fourteen hours, weekends, could make an exception for this guy, overtime. crazy or not, who had captured so Thus, he is tired at day's end. He exactly the landscape of his youth, the does not lie awake, waiting out the blurred lights of distant smokestacks dark hours open-eyed and jittery, rising up beyond the hills, blazing in shocked by the few quick splashes the night. that haunt the bridge of his wife's Those are stars, his nose, headlights from the rare car out smallest daughter in this weather - folks coming home said. from the VFW hall a mile up the road. A man A man enjoys a beer. His first knows when beer, he enjoys the most. Twelve years he's bested. old. Pabst on tap. Bunch of old drunks He could leaning over card tables, slapping have simply him on the back. The women biting replied: Sure their Virginia Slims Menthols, hugging are. his boyish face to their breasts. His Instead, father's hand ghosting itself on the he shrugged, chilled mug and the beer was so turned his too- smooth - clean hands up Or was it bitter? and stuffed them Yes, that's right. Before he was useless into his a man, he had looked around that pockets, wandered off. hall and silently vowed never to go to When no one was looking, war. He couldn't bear the thought of he tore the painting out of the losing a leg, the terror that rose in him magazine and filed it deep in his whenever he saw the strange pattern wallet. of burns that moved down his father's A man does not tremble in the back like red-bellied snakes in a fallow dark as he extracts himself from a Though cornfield - woman's arms. He pulls on his old she might No. A man is courageous. He is white tube socks, union suit, grease- tell you otherwise, willing to fight. Sometimes he is just stained Wranglers, flannel, UAW a woman born and bred born in a good month, has the right hat - Local 594, Pontiac Assembly in Michigan loves a Big Three letter beginning his last name, misses Center, used to be Truck and Bus in Man, the black-crusted half-moon the draft, lands himself a fine job. the good old days. A man loves these fingernails, the life-line on his palms a But this is not how a man's clothes even if a woman hates them, telling river of oil. A man like that can memory works, the truth slipping back even if she's wished for him in a suit always reassure a woman. He never and forth like that painting thick with and tie or even in one of those faggy has to tiptoe away like a criminal. blue and yellow paint. black turtlenecks the guys in her art A loser. An idiot who could have Painted by a madman, his wife magazines wear with pleated beige just gone ahead and enlisted like had said. pants. everybody else, gotten his balls all full 32 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE SHORT FICTION From The Galaxie and Other Rides short stories by Josie Sigler 94, published in June 2012 by Livingston Press of The University of West Alabama. not leave them to fend for themselves. A man pays for their weddings, sends them to college. He's in the worth more alive than dead. night, he He looks at the face of his oldest checks on his daughter, the one who dreamed of girls. His youngest has going away to school but settled for crawled in with the middle girl some classes up at the community on the bottom bunk. college. Because a man never thinks of Their faces are pressed together about what he takes from a woman, Agent as if they have been telling secrets. he's erased the memory of that Orange. If The middle girl loves to dance - desperate year when everyone was he'd survived, at least, she used to love it, wandered out a job - Flint was closing - and he'd at least around in a tutu most of her second- this girl sat awake with him like a have benefits to grade year. He took her to the VFW woman at the table in that small offer his family. hall with him once - a secret he knew trailer at four in the morning while her Something besides she'd keep from her mother. There, mother scrubbed the floor of an office the life insurance he twirled her, taught her to do the building in the city, trying to make up policy sold to him by that Achy Breaky Heart. Now she's dyed the difference. shiny-faced guy who went door-to- her hair green and wears nothing He was drunk. He cried. door. but the tattered black T-shirts she's A real man walks his girl back to A man does not dream up scavenged from her brother's closet. bed, tucks her in with a glass of milk accidents, no matter how much She looks like a mourning leprechaun - real milk from a jug with a red cap, nothing he finds turning out his and he tells her so. Vitamin D fortified, not that powdered pockets. Goddamnit, now. A man stands crap issued by the state. He tells her Before a man leaves the house beside the women in his life, does to have sweet dreams even if worry COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 33 and loneliness drown his heart. snowy sky, suddenly remembering Silverado 1500 extended cab, half- He hardly knows this daughter those barn kittens his brothers did ton, American-made - leaves tracks now. She is for another man to know. that autumn long ago - that will soon be covered by more A man might pause briefly at his No, he was never so green, a loose white powder. He takes the son's empty room. He does not lift virgin in his thirteenth spring, and back roads where he taught his boy a white undershirt to his nose and helpless. He was never thin enough to drive. A man loves the moment his inhale, trying to get at the musky smell to fall in with the young saplings at boy understands the release of the that remains in the cotton. He picks the pasture's edge where he watched clutch and the pickup chugs violently up his boy's football and tosses it up his brothers hold those late summer forward. in the air to watch it spin and come kittens by their tails and dip them It was spring, then. Everything neatly back to his palm, but he does into a bucket of gasoline. The kittens was green. not hold it in the crook of his arm mewed and arched their terrified A man does not imagine the and think of his boy as a baby: sweet- backs. moment his boy's shaved blonde skull faced, too kind to murder anyone, Don't do it. Please. is destroyed by shrapnel, grenade, even for his country. He'd never beg like that. bullet. It's probably the middle of He presses the button on the fire Surely he admired his brothers' the day in Iraq and his son might be detector to make sure the green light rippling arms as they hefted the driving over some gravelly dusty road, still flashes, but he does not send burlap sack. They said the kittens maybe thinking of him, too. It's hot its small bleep echoing through the would be like balls of fire rolling down and sunny in the desert and a man hallway until his youngest girl moans the road. who believes in his country and its for him to stop. Hot damn. power has to believe his boy is safe A man takes pleasure in passing A man does not hate his brothers because his boy has always been through the door to his garage. for their cruelty, even if his girls do brave. Courage, a man thinks, leads to It's just your standard door, but hate them, even if the middle girl, surviving any risk. A man is proud of it leads to his own world. And at least upon hearing this story, says she'll his boy, weapons of mass destruction once a week he's entitled to fiddle never talk to Uncle Buddy again. But or no. at his workbench or sit in a green a man can't hold a grudge against a His boy was the only person who plastic yard chair amidst the junk cars, guy whose wife hasn't given it up for understood how close they had come wound up orange extension cords, years. A man does not think: If I were so many times to losing everything. and old power tools. A man smokes his wife, I'd sleep in another bed, too. These are the things with which a man and sips whiskey, warms his feet by Kitten-Killer. trusts a son: layoffs, bankruptcies, the small kerosene heater, listens to This is the equation between strikes, the houses that seemed to the old country songs his girls hate. father and daughter: He protects slip through his hands like so much Hick music, they call it. A man knows and cares for her. He asks nothing sand. A man can admit this much of he's not a hick. He's not an alcoholic. in exchange. He swears he'll murder the past: the harder he held to any He's worked hard in his lifetime. Thus, anyone who hurts her. And maybe he life, the faster it ran out, and at the a man has to have his space. He can't does it, too. last moment, when it seemed he had have his foreman screaming in one ear A man does not leave a house full grasped something solid, it was skin and his wife in the other twenty-four of women for two years and his son on skin. But he tries not to think about seven. barely sixteen, even if General Motors the jobs he worked during the lean A man does not hunt the shelves says: it's that or lose his job. years. He's proud of how he and the frantically and nearly weep to find that This middle daughter, the one boy managed things, but won't tell he gave the last of the kerosene to the who looks most like him, was eleven you about stints sweeping parking neighbors. Everybody's hurting. It's when they forced him to take the lots, selling vacuum cleaners, mopping a man's job to make sure the people transfer to Baltimore. There, a lost floors right alongside his wife. Jobs he knows get what they need. It's a bird, wounded, flew onto the balcony you can't even find anymore. man's job to solve difficult problems. of his shitty apartment where he lived The boy took up a Sunday paper He'll have to take some canisters up by himself. He set its wing, nursed it route to bring in grocery money. to Larry's. It's the Super America now, back to health. A man does not believe That's a good boy. open twenty-four hours, but before the bird was his daughter's spirit But a man does not consider the that it was just Larry's, open 'til ten. calling him home to save her. When days he came home, exhausted and He emerges from the side door he's returned to his family and takes dirty, to find his son, just thirteen, of the garage carrying in his flanneled his girl on his knee only to have her patching a hole in the roof or his arms two old gas canisters from his cringe away, a man gets angry about daughter wearing an apron while her boat, one of them slightly dented, a what happened to her, not scared. mother slept, all of them forging the crease in the red paint that bothers Tonight his breath is a cloud signatures on the report cards and his thumbnail. He stares into the in the air and his truck - beautiful stifling their thick winter coughs in 34 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE a chorus of grateful suffocation. He compact his mother opened to take even a man will admire - just briefly does not ask: what must that have the shine from her nose in church. - how the snow's weighed down the been like? That childhood? But the snow does not suddenly long broad arms of the pine trees Some creep pulled his middle smell to him of incense - a kind of so they are like his mother was too, daughter into a car as she walked clean, washed holiness. The stars carrying so much but still standing, home from her dance class and do not become her eyes, staring at still moving toward him. A man opened her body. Her father was not him, admonishing him. A man does doesn't ask: What would she think there to gather her as the others in not remember how that swift drift if she could see him now? Were her their sheer pink tights were gathered of frankincense clung to her even as sacrifices worth nothing to him? by their fathers. A man does not she walked out into a bright Sunday And his father! Second Infantry, Indianhead Division. His father was pushed face down in a pile of muck along the Yalu River in Korea, taken prisoner. His old man didn't lay eyes on him until he was three years old. A man does not admit that he was scared of the strange soldier who limped up the driveway from the mailbox. That he is still scared of the man who thrashed him for forgetting to latch the gate to the hog pen, for spying on his sisters, for crying when Sister Margaret rapped his knuckles because he insisted on writing with his left hand. A man admits he had it coming. He had it coming every time it came. His old man did the best he could. Having endured the cherry-hot pincers that left the scars on his back, his pops should not have had THOUGH SHE MIGHT TELL YOU to endure, too, raising a son fond of OTHERWISE, A WOMAN BORN AND watercolors, a quiet boy who loved to sit in the corner of the kindergarten BRED IN MICHIGAN LOVES A BIG THREE class and stare at A Child's Introduction to Art. A father should not have to MAN, THE BLACK-CRUSTED HALF-MOON tolerate a boy who cried like a baby FINGERNAILS, THE LIFE-LINE ON HIS when his brothers played some stupid PALMS A TELLING RIVER OF OIL. prank with a bunch of useless barn cats. And if a father does get stuck with such a son, why would that son subject him to this final insult? This final sissy act? pretend this did not happen. He afternoon. A man does not bury his And what about his own son doesn't lock himself in his garage and face for just a moment in the grey coming back from Iraq to find - drink whiskey. He doesn't rest until curls that peek out from the green silk No. he finds out who he ought to kill. He kerchief. He does not suddenly hold A man wouldn't even think about remembers a particular pair of eyes his mother with an urge strong as sex this. He would not, in fact, think of in the VFW hall one of those twirling to press her birdlike ribs against his any of this - except perhaps that his nights, a specific skinny punk playing cotton T-shirt. father was a hero for having endured basketball in the park. But a man does If she dies the next morning, if her Death Valley and it means he is a not look at other men and discover body lies on the floor in the hallway hero's son even if he did not sign up to every single one is the one who hurt for three days before he stops in and go to Vietnam. his girl. finds her, a man is allowed a field or A man swings his legs from his He guns the engine. The white two of open grief. But no more. truck, feels the slight crunch as his cloud that lifts into the air behind Paused briefly at the junction feet sink into the unplowed parking his tires might give him a flash of the where he'll turn onto the highway, lot. He is full of pride, not shame, COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 35 as he walks into the station, shakes as putting beer on your whiskey - A man, after carousing, returns his sodden boots off on the mat and and drains the Stroh's to the can's himself to a woman who stood by him greets an old buddy with a slap on the bottom. He could ask Larry for more while other families were broken by back. whiskey and Larry'd surely pony it layoffs and shutdowns and fear. He Ain't the same, he thinks, now up, but only if a guy'll say something forgets all of those things that could that the Super America come in and about why he's here in the middle of have sent a jagged crack into their razed everything, got rid of the porch the night. Fight with his wife. Trouble union, wakes in the morning, drinks and the salvage out back. The old men with the neighbors. No time for a hot cup of coffee. Maybe he buys in UAW hats who read the paper there, too, seem to have disappeared. A man rolls with the changes. A MAN'S BOAT HAS HIS OWN WIFE'S He doesn't use grief or fear, NAME ON THE SIDE AND ITS TINY ENGINE insomnia or depression. He says his balls are still on midnights after all IS NOT RIGGED TO THE GUNNEL WITH those years of taking what he could A COAT HANGER. HIS BOAT RANKS UP get. He doesn't say unfair. Those THERE WITH HIS TRUCK, HIS TACKLE, HIS fuckers who buy foreign, he says. FAVORITE WRENCH. Fucking gas prices and President Fucking Bush. Larry says he thinks that's the real name his momma give him. A man says, Bailouts or no, I'm fishing. But a man cannot tell an old some nightcrawlers and tries his luck getting raped. buddy the truth. He can't turn to Larry in the lake. But after that, what does Larry asks how the boy is over as they come back in through the he do? What does he do if there is no there. milk crates and toilet paper and hold place to make cars? A man nods, tightens his lips. him and say that he just can't take it The first time he peered under The boy's holding up. He's carrying anymore. the hood of an old Model-T, that fifty-six pounds of gear on his lanky He says his garage heater's out - tangle of rubber and metal was more frame through the Iraqi desert. A man he's trying to watch the replays of the familiar to him in a glance than his can face the footage - thank God on game - asks about the kerosene. own innards and veins, more familiar CNN and not their local news - in Them red cans are for gasoline. than the women he loved in that car which his boy - he knew it was his Can't letcha fill 'em with the kerosene, paid for with his own barnyard sweat boy right away - kicks the body of buddy, Larry says. every Sunday. And once he bought it, a dead Iraqi. For sport, the reporter You shitting me? he asks. he was a man. A car was what made had said. Sport. A man doesn't whine, No way no how. Super America you a man. A man, everyone's got to even to himself: What else could rules. understand, cannot just sit around my son do? What choice did my boy Crock of shit, a man says. But he with his union suit hanging out of have? He says: That's what war can takes this in stride like a man would, his jeans and watch The Geography do to a man. It changes a man on the chooses gasoline. Channel all damned day. level of the blood. A father simply Careful with that, Larry says. A man does not, as he hauls accepts a fiercer son, one whose face Can't use it in the kerosene lamp. those stinking canisters into the revealed his pleasure, not his rage, as But a man can do most anything garage, merely shrug when his woman he slammed his heavy foot into that the packaging of an appliance warns appears at the door in her tattered body. you not to do. And he does not think: grey robe to ask: It's midwinter. It's Larry cracks a beer even though Bingo. The insurance company will eat the middle of the night. What's the it's past two in the morning. A man that up like candy. need for gasoline, now? pounds his friend on the back some Go home to your wife, now, She's thinking it's the house he's more - nothing in the world as good asshole, Larry says. going to do. 36 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE A man takes her in his arms, says, the garage just after dawn, all gelled But he's not a man, anymore. I would never risk that. We're going to up and ready for school. Freed from all the rules he's ever make it, a man says. He tells her they She might say, Anything wrong, known, he bolts his side of the garage were out of kerosene. His feet were Dad? door. He wails as he would have his cold. Not a thing, he says. He smiles entire life if a man were allowed to A man does not get nervous when and rubs his hand over her spiked wail. He opens the cap on one of the she rests her hand on the small green hair, asks why, when God give her canisters and holds it over his head. aluminum boat as if she's going to such nice hair, she's done the shit He pours and shakes his hair, the way stay awhile. A man is never forced to she's done to it. his murderer son used to do with sell his real boat, the one that carried Even though they both know why, water between plays on the football him far enough out into the blue to a man and his daughter laugh. field. He even opens his mouth, letting feel he had escaped, to claim a dented A man simply does not do this the gasoline coat his tongue, sting his patchling like this one. A man's boat thing in front of her, his bird who nostrils. It soaks him, trickles down has his own wife's name on the side doubles back, worried. into his shoes. Because he wants to and its tiny engine is not rigged to He does not give his youngest this be sure of this thing, he empties the the gunnel with a coat hanger. His constellation as she cries and pounds second canister. He makes sure the boat ranks up there with his truck, his on the glass of the garage door kerosene heater gets a good dose and tackle, his favorite wrench. leading to the kitchen and screams: stands before it. He takes up a match. If a woman persists in her Why No. They are behind the glass of the now? stance, a man tells her that it's Nor does he do this in front of his door. Their eyes and mouths beg. His just an Irish errand, as his mother oldest - a man does not offer her this wife brings up her fist wrapped in the always said when she did something dream, unforgettable, burned onto sleeve of her tattered terry-cloth robe he could not understand. her eyelids for the rest of her life so to break the door's glass, but not soon A man kisses his worried wife's that she never sleeps again without enough. He wants to stop, let her save forehead, and sends her back to bed. seeing it: this flailing, spinning, him again. But they'll be better off He does not stare for long hours screaming angel of fire whose wings without him. out the window from his seat in the rise suddenly into the rafters. He strikes it. garage. He's made to last. He's like a A man does not do this to a A man would find another way. If rock. A man makes a truck and drives woman who loved him when he was he were a man, he'd be sorry. But if the truck he's made. He smells of down to nothing and fed him and he had a whole town, he'd be the thick the factory - oil, grease, sweat - his children and in all the years he's yellow moon in the sky. He'd never where he has worked for thirty-one known her has never once hurt him waver. If he painted himself, he'd be years. He believes the great American or them nor complained. A woman the bright star rising above the trees automobile will rise again. who smiled every time she felt him and he'd sail right over everything He might tease his sweet and watching her in the dark. that's left here. ruined daughter as she walks through A man does not do this - "A Man Is Not A Star" first appeared in the journal Hunger Mountain in 2011. The collection won the Tartt First Fiction Award for previously unpublished books of fiction. Josie Sigler was born in downriver Detroit and grew up in the Midwest. She is the author of two poetry books, The Chapbook Calamity, published by Proem Press and living must bury, winner of the 2010 Motherwell Prize, published by Fence Books. Among other acknowledgements at the close of this volume, she offers this: "Thanks to Karen Waldron and Bill Carpenter for putting me on my path as a younger writer. Every writer should have teachers as generous as you were to me at seventeen years old." COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 37 Crow By Abigail Dunn '13 Graham 20 2 The crows and I feel how close is too close. When I pass them in the woods, they always crouch the same way - wings out and low with legs bent, prepared to fly and we can feel the thickness between us; then they take off with quick flaps. But this morning, when I was walking down Ash Street, the crow I often see, who has one foot which dangles loosely below her belly when she flies, And then she took off, was pecking in the dewy grass leaving me limp and crippled on the cement, and the few seconds longer it took her she flew across the road to decide if she must strain to raise herself from the ground as I passed, with her right leg hanging in the air, wrung me until my kneecaps cracked. her grey talon brushing against the wind. 38 Illustration by Carrie Graham, George B. Dorr Museum of Natural History supervisor. ALUMNI NOTES 1981 He writes, "I am quite excited as P+W 1985 fully embodies sustainable design, encourages material health in the After 18 years, Jim Senter and partner built environment, and created Glaeshia O'Rourke completed their many recent LEED platinum-certified house, the latest addition to Potluck projects. My work services many Farm, an intentional community leading companies contributing 25 miles north of Durham, North to the rich and dynamic growth of Carolina. Adding photovoltaic panels biotechnology in the Boston area and and modern materials to a traditional beyond. I am feeling a lot of the same vernacular farmhouse, their new headiness and participatory potential home is something old and something that I enjoyed 30 years ago when I new. stood with 30 (or so) others to receive our COA degrees, ready to tackle the This May, Bev Agler graduated with 1988 great challenges." a PhD in fisheries from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. In response to Dorie Stolley has opened a new Liz Cunningham and husband Charlie the hooding ceremony, she writes, "It business, Three Birds Consulting, celebrated their 10th anniversary was sort of cool when they officially specializing in communication needs and are enjoying life in the Berkeley, introduced me as Dr. Agler." Jean for conservation and environmental California hills, taking comfort that Hoekwater '80 (pictured far right) organizations, including social media, attended. Bev's thesis was on chum science writing, and behavior change salmon and climatic factors. "It only campaigns. took 10 years, but I have a full-time job! Now I'm not quite sure what to do 1989 with all my free time, but I went off to Madagascar for a birding and lemur In April, Dina Petrillo installed an trip in October." exhibit of her prints at Castle Galeazza run by Clark Lawrence '92. Jim Cole Janet Biondi has been living in and Noreen Hogan '91 joined her for northern California since 1997, after this trip to Italy. Their visit overlapped seven years on the island of Kauai with the travel of faculty member Ken where her daughter Tessa, 19, was Cline and staff member Jen Hughes. born. In 2009 she went to Tuscany Due to May's earthquake damage to for certification in Active Release when the deer and gophers graze the castle, Clark has relocated Reading in their garden, at least the wildlife Techniques, a type of myofascial Retreats in Rural Italy to Corte Eremo, are eating local. Liz is completing a release/sports therapy, and now has Mantova. book on ocean conservation. Entitled the practice Biondi Sports Therapy in her home office in Mount Shasta. She Ocean Country, it looks at conservation 1992 issues in four key regions of the writes, "I am continuing to paint, play world. Liz awaits travels to Indonesia my fiddle a bit, fly fish - and I have Lelania (Prior) Avila writes "A series to write about marine biodiversity a great circle of friends. I'm feeling of workshops I offered last winter on in Raja Ampat and the Bajo Sea grateful for this wonderful life!" The Toolshed of My Heart were well nomads in Sulawesi. Read more at received, and I've recently accepted 1982 lizcunningham.net. the title 'Self-Care Queen.' I'm discovering what continual effort it Andy Bennett and wife Dorothy are 1983 is to practice mindful consumption, nearing their 30th anniversary. Isabel, and have become a NIABY (Not In their oldest child, attends Bard College Cara Guerrieri writes, "Three kids Anyone's Back Yard). I'm steadily while twin daughters Iris and Lilly and nearly 30 years after graduating, trying to ensure my brainwashing are in eighth grade. Having practiced I've earned an MFA in creative is done with biodegradable soap, architecture in Boston for 15 years, writing from Western State Colorado preferring Dr. Bronner's All-One to the Andy recently joined the renowned University." Cara will be an adjunct green-washing substitutes. I'm finding design firm Perkins+Will. faculty member at WSCU this fall. comfort in my recent alignment with COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 39 the 13-moon natural time calendar with us just seven days later. 2012 has 2000 for peace (13moon.com) and have been a wild and wonderful ride!" more creativity, energy, and balance Meg (West) Westfox earned her BS in my daily life. My family's transition 1997 in nursing and RN in an accelerated to Northeast Harbor, Maine has been program at the Massachusetts College rewarding. I can be reached at oasis@ of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. She heartcraftcalligraphy.com. is living with her husband, Matthew, in Springfield, Massachusetts. 2002 DINNE In her new position as a program manager at the Intel Computer Clubhouse Network of the Museum Scott Bishop's firm Stoss Landscape of Science, Boston, Nicole D'Avis Urbanism, a critical, collaborative planned the Teen Summit 2012: design and planning studio based in "Design Your Future, Change the Boston, Massachusetts, won the 2012 World." This event brought nearly 300 National Design Award in the category teens from around the globe together of Landscape Architecture from to express their ideas with high- In August, Jeff Miller rode a five- Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National end technologies, including graphic day, 400-mile bike tour around Design Museum. The prestigious design, animation, music, radio and the northern half of Vermont with award recognizes remarkable and film documentary, and 3-D modeling. 15-year-old Will Greene (son of Craig exemplary work in park and garden Nicole hopes to fund COA interns to Greene, late faculty member in design or urban planning. Scott work on this project. botany). Not only did Will beat Jeff in participated in the Teen Design Fair climbing each of the hundreds of hills (above photo), held prior to the award 2003 they rode, Will did his first "century," luncheon at the White House. slept his first night in a treehouse, and Hope Rowan, MPhil, has ramped did some sweet single-track mountain up her GIS consulting work to biking in the legendary Northeast create Western Mountain Mapping, Kingdom Trails out of East Burke. westernmountainmapping.com, based out of her recently purchased home in 1993 Southwest Harbor, Maine. In addition to providing mapping services and CedarBough Saeji has completed her training in geospatial technologies to PhD in culture and performance at local organizations and towns, she UCLA. creates personalized "commemorative maps" highlighting aspects of visitors' 1996 time in Acadia, including places visited, trails hiked, and geographically "What a year we've had!" writes Nikki On April 24, Alison Knabe Golden, referenced photos. Grimes. "Audrey and I decided last husband John, and Jack, age 2.5, October that we wanted to add a child welcomed Milo Vincent. 2005 to our family and set about putting things in place. The first step was to 1999 Jacquelyn Gill defended her PhD move to a larger home, so we spent all in geography at the University of of December reviving our 860-square- Mindi (Meltz) Friedwald created Wisconsin in July. She writes, "In foot home - painting, cleaning, and mythicaldreams.com to introduce her the spirit of my growing respect making a few small repairs. The house mythical novel series, Lonely in the for the power of social media and hit the market mid-January and sold Heart of the World, which she hopes open science, I live-streamed my after just four showings. We then set will be published soon. The beginning defense seminar worldwide. For my out on a whirlwind of house tours of the first volume is available at the dissertation I examined the ecological and failed offers. We searched far and website, which includes a blog to impacts of the extinction of ice-age wide, ultimately finding the perfect spark conversation about dreams herbivores in the Great Lakes region. home about 100 yards from the one including reflection, interpretation, My work suggests that the loss of we sold! In July, we applied to be foster and inspiration. Mindi welcomes megafaunal browsers and grazers, parents and a newborn was placed feedback. combined with climate change, 40 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE resulted in the formation of novel University. She interned in the patchworkgardens.net. As a children's ecosystems that flourished during Corporate Communications office at librarian in town, Madeline organized the transition from the last ice age the Connecticut Public Broadcasting a summer reading program around to our current warm interglacial. I Network this summer and continues urban gardening and farming. blog about this and other long-term to work for the Dakin Pioneer Valley perspectives at The Contemplative Humane Society in Springfield, 2010 Mammoth (contemplativemammoth. Massachusetts, which she calls "a wordpress.com). In August, I started meaningful part of my life." She lives Noah Hodgetts, who started a two- as a Voss Postdoctoral Fellow at with her cat, Nokomis, whom she year master's in urban and regional Brown University where I'll be working adopted after her COA internship policy program at Northeastern with biogeographer Dov Sax and at the Camden-Rockport Animal University, received the first annual paleoeclimatologist Jim Russell. As Rescue League. Kate's fife and drum Tikkun Alum Award from the Rashi in my dissertation, I'll be working corps, Connecticut Valley Field Music, School. This past summer he on a project that brings a paleo- traveled to Basel, Switzerland, for interned for the Director of Policy perspective to a modern global the 2012 Basel Muster in June, one Development and Implementation at change question." Follow her on of six US corps to perform in Basel the Massachusetts Executive Office of Twitter: @JacquelynGill and Liestal, Switzerland. Find them at Housing and Economic Development, facebook.com/ctvalleyfieldmusic. doing a combination of policy, After more than five years teaching planning, and mapping work. at the Chewonki Semester School, 2008 Marjolaine Whittlesey is now living 2011 in Portland, Maine, launching North At the base of Jordan Pond, after a Yarmouth Academy's French Mastery long hike, David Francis proposed to In the inaugural class of service Program, and finishing up a master's COA staff member Danielle Meier this members, Grace Cherubino thesis on French theater in Maine. spring. Their two cats were delighted completed a year with FoodCorps When she has time, she hops on the with the merger, as they received during which she built and maintained planks of local community theaters. celebratory wet food when the couple three educational school and came home. (More on Dani under Dru community gardens, and taught 2007 Colbert in Community Notes.) elementary school students about healthy eating, farming, and With the sponsorship of a graduate 2009 sustainability. She now has embarked fellowship, Maria Lis Baiocchi has on a completely different track - begun a PhD in anthropology at Josh Helser-Howard and Madeline making Tiki mugs (ScallywagCeramics. the University of Pittsburgh. Her Helser-Howard ('11) were recently com). She writes, "This is really studies will focus on sociocultural married. They have two rescue dogs, exciting for me because since leaving anthropology. Odis and Elmer, two rescue cats, COA I haven't been able to do Kenmore and Reginald, and live in ceramics, an art form that is very close Charlie Fischer is assistant Richmond, Indiana. Josh co-manages to my heart!" manager of the EMS store in Hadley, 12 acres of land, most of which Massachusetts, and preparing for 2012 a summer climb of Mont Blanc, the birthplace of modern mountaineering After graduation, Matthew Doyle and, at 4,810.45 meters, the highest Olson, MPhil, moved to his hometown point in western Europe. of Madison, Wisconsin and started a fellowship at Edgewood College Kate Sheely is studying for an MS in their sustainability leadership in interactive media at Quinnipiac program, providing opportunities for graduate students and local leaders to talk about, plan for, and launch projects that will affect the city's future. Matthew is working for the Integrated Pest Management Institute to help design a fresh produce is covered with organic gardens, sustainability standard and rating berry bushes, and fruit trees, at system, identifying pesticide risk, Patchwork Gardens in nearby New fertilizer applications, water use, and Lebanon, Ohio. The farm has a energy use. Excited to be part of the CSA and year-round fresh produce: process for this cutting-edge tool, he COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 41 will work on the program's design, FAMILY & ALUMNI WEEKEND communications, training, launch, management, and evaluation. OCTOBER 5-8, 2012 Marina Garland and Hank Ainley were married in the hayfield behind Hank's farmhouse with guests and sheep looking on. Marina writes, "Hank and I wrote our own vows and Corrine Boet-Whitaker '14, Rowanna Herndon '13, and I sang a wedding 12347 song, then we had a potluck followed by a contra dance. A big COA crew helped families and other friends with everything from picking mint for sun tea, to cutting wildflowers, to setting up the potluck food, to singing while washing mountains of dishes (no disposables of course), to teaching folks how to contra dance!" In the photo are (front row): Erika Georgaklis '14, Hank, Marina, Lindsey Erickson, Rowanna, Hale AGREEMENTS WORK TROM YOUR VOICE SURL Morrell, Lucy Atkins, Caitlin Thurrell '11, Corinne, Robin Kuehn '10, Kira Weintraub, faculty member in biology Helen Hess; (back row): Abigail Dunn '13, Caitlyn Ebbenga, Solomon Spigel, faculty members Chris Petersen, Ken Cline, and Todd Little- Clockwise from top: Andrea Abrell '96 and Michelle, wife of Damon Lear '95, Siebold, staff member Jen Hughes, with their families aboard the Starfish Enterprise, captained by Eddie Monat '88; Luka Negoita '11, Franklin Jacoby, Bonnie Tai leads a session on visioning Educational Studies over the next 25 Philip Walter '11, Zach Whalen '11, years; Joshua Noddin '16 with his family at the welcome reception at The Turrets. and Ryan Woofenden '13. ALUMNI RESOURCES Wanted: Notes for COA Career Services Black Fly Society Send your notes to Dianne Clendaniel, Looking for career and resumé The Black Fly Society is the alumni relations and development guidance? Graduate school eco-friendly way to give to COA. coordinator, at dclendaniel@coa.edu. and networking opportunities? To join this monthly giving society, Information about the new internships go to www.coa.edu/support and click Stay Connected and jobs Google group? Access to "Give A Gift Online" on the left-hand Update your contact information: employment databases? Contact Jill side. Under the "Gift Frequency" Phone: 207-801-5624 Barlow-Kelley, director of internships drop-down menu, choose "Monthly." Email: alumni@coa.edu and career services, at jbk@coa.edu Submit your gift, and you're done! Website: www.coa.edu/alumni or 207-801-5633. Questions? 207-801-5622. 42 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE In Memoriam MARION MESCHTER KANE January 2, 1945-August 20, 2012 Marion Kane first came to College of the Atlantic in 1972 with her husband Dan, a founding faculty member, and her two sons. She began working for the college as director of public relations in the early 1980s. After the July 1983 fire that destroyed Kaelber Hall, Marion wrote about the resilience of the faculty and staff, of their commitment to rebuild, to start anew. Marion's articles, some of which were published nationally, and her quiet conversations with the college's many supporters, played a pivotal role in ensuring that the college would reopen and eventually triumph. In late 1983 she joined Ed Kaelber, COA founding president, in starting the Maine Community Foundation; in 1989 she became its director. Photograph courtesy of The Maine Community Foundation. Marion moved to Boston to head the Barr Foundation in 2000 and retired from there in 2008. I have many memories of Marion - she was a friend, a colleague, a successful CEO, but mostly I remember Marion for her compassion, courage, independent spirit, and graciousness. She never faltered in her support of Dan as his Lou Gehrig's disease progressed and eventually took his life; and she fought and triumphed over her own cancer in much the same way. In her reflections on life's journey, Marion wrote about "how profoundly moved" she was by the thoughtful way Dan "conducted his final journey. Walking with him on that path had many gifts for me. It taught me that you can't measure a life in terms of time and that there is an art to being 'finished' when you die." Marion's can-do, unflappable attitude was recently exemplified by her two-year-old granddaughter, Tessa. I had stopped by the Kane home in Somesville; it was drizzling and Tessa, in her red boots, was ready to go out to play. The drizzle quickly turned to a downpour, but Tessa, like her grandmother, was not to be deterred: she opened her umbrella and jauntily went outside. Anne Kozak, faculty member in writing PETER H. LIOTTA September 16, 1956-August 31, 2012 Poet, author, scholar, pilot, and international relations expert, Pete Liotta was a friend of the college whose extensive knowledge illuminated the interdisciplinary Twentieth Century and Turn of the Century classes I co-taught with John Anderson and JoAnne Carpenter. He touched many students with his knowledge, compassion, and humility. The author of seventeen books, a former US Air Force pilot and military attaché, Peter also served as Fulbright lecturer and poet-in- residence in the former Yugoslavia. He directed the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy for six years, and was a professor of political science and humanities at Salve Regina University at the time of his death. Bill Carpenter, faculty member in literature and creative writing JOHN GUARD DARRAH ('89) April 26, 1966-September 7, 2012 John Darrah was an activist who started college at COA in 1985, but left a year later to join the Great Peace March, walking across the nation to promote nuclear disarmament. He eventually graduated from UC Berkeley, where he helped to lead campus protests; he then began developing low-income housing in San Francisco, and later received an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He was developing mixed-use, often environmentally sustainable projects around the nation when he died, tragically: John was swimming in Flathead Lake near Polson, Montana when he was struck by a boat, leaving behind a wife and two young daughters - and memories of happier times. Donna Gold COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 43 COMMUNITY N o T E S Deep Things Out of Darkness: A History ecology section activities and serving Faculty member in chemistry Don of Natural History by John Anderson, in ESA's mentor program. Along with Cass began developing a nutrient COA's William H. Drury, Jr. Chair Rob Dyball, director of the human budget for some of Beech Hill Farm's in Evolution, Ecology, and Natural ecology program at Australia National acreage to be sure the fields are History will be published in February University, Rich took on an ESA history getting enough of the nutrients they by the University of California Press. project leading up to the society's need - and not too much. With In August, when John and three 2015 centennial conference. Rich is faculty member in biology Chris students presented at the North also on the planning committee for Petersen and Friends of Casco Bay, American Ornithological Conference the XIXth International Conference Don also developed preliminary in Vancouver, BC, COA provided of the Society for Human Ecology in measurements of acidification at one-quarter of the undergraduate Canberra, Australia this February. Hadley Point on MDI. offerings: John on colony collapse in herring and great black-backed gulls, Faculty member in mathematics and During his sabbatical last spring, Ken chemistry Ryan Bouldin has just Cline, the David Rockefeller Family become a father. On July 19, he and Chair in Ecosystem Management and his wife Elizabeth welcomed their Protection, took five COA students baby girl Flory Michael Bouldin. Ryan from his HydroPolitics course to has been invited to join the scientific the Sixth World Water Forum in advisory council of the Environmental Marseilles, France. He then joined the Health Strategy Center in Portland, COA France Program at CAVILAM in Maine. Read about its work in the Vichy before researching protected profile of Emily Postman '11, pg. 26. area management and customary management of "sacred waters" - Matt Dickinson '12 on sparrow nest- Dean of Development Lynn Boulger areas venerated by pre-Christian site selection on Maine's Great Duck hiked the Tour du Mont Blanc in and/or Christian societies. He visited Island, Kathryn Shlepr '13 on the September with her husband Tim the Cinque Terre National Park in impact of bald eagle predation on Garrity, executive director of the Italy, Piatra Craiului National Park herring gulls in Maine, and Lindsey in Romania, and Plitvice National Nielsen '13 (above photo) on the Park in Croatia, looking at the ways implications of offshore wind power informal or customary rules protected for birds. environmental features from pollution or destruction. He connected with Molly Anderson, Partridge Chair in many alumni, including Katarina Food and Sustainable Agriculture Jurikova '08 (photo below) in Systems, has been working on Bratislava, Slovakia. In June he developing stronger partnerships joined Gray Cox, faculty member in in the northeast for COA, including political philosophy, 15 COA students organizing the Food Connections and three Transatlantic Partnership conference at COA in April. She is students at Rio+20, the UN Conference connecting to people from other New Mt. Desert Island Historical Society. on Sustainable Development. (See pg. England universities on a vision of The hike is one of Europe's most 8 or visit earthinbrackets.org.) growing at least 60 percent of New popular long-distance trails - 105 England's food within the region miles, snaking through Italy, France, by 2060. She also participated in and Switzerland, with an elevation the Kellogg Foundation's Food & change of 32,000 feet over the ten- Community gathering in Asheville, day circuit. To prepare, Lynn and Tim North Carolina in May. climbed every peak in Acadia as well as Katahdin. Despite the busy COA Rich Borden, the Rachel Carson Chair summer schedule, they walked or in Human Ecology, attended the 97th hiked every day, filling their packs annual meeting of the Ecological with canned tomatoes, books, even Society of America in Portland, windshield washer fluid to simulate Oregon, participating in the human their load on the trek. 44 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Last spring, Catherine Clinger, the Institute of Science and Technology. Audin, Robert Finkle, and Sarah Hall, Allan Stone Chair in the Visual Arts, Returning home, he gave a talk at COA's new faculty member in geology gave a linocut weekend workshop Maine's Seal Cove Auto Museum on and earth sciences, appeared in at Beech Hill Farm, then set up energy and electric cars: "Energy 101: September's Earth and Planetary a linoleum cutting and printing Why Electric Cars Matter." In October, Science Letters. station - guerilla style - in Deering he gave a public lecture on chaos at Common. Original prints from this COA followed by a book signing for his In June, Todd Little-Siebold, faculty endeavor were sold to benefit Share new textbook (see page 46). member in history, Suzanne Morse, the Harvest, which funds farm the Elizabeth Battles Newlin Chair purchases for those receiving food In June, Jay Friedlander, the Sharpe- in Botany, and Chris Petersen held assistance. She serves on the editorial McNally Chair in Green and Socially a three-day workshop determining board of Object Journal in London and Responsible Business, presented the variety of Maine apple trees from is a reader for several international at the International Council of their genetic fingerprint using samples journals. Small Business in New Zealand from Beech Hill Farm, Acadia National on using sustainability to unlock Park, and other locations. The work innovation, and then presented was supported by a grant to Suzanne the design concept "Project R" to from the Transatlantic Partnership. the EDF Sustainable Energy Design Students Barbara Beblowski '14, Competition in London. Created by Polly McAdam '14, Ali Pierik '14, and Kate Macko, sustainable business Abbey Verrier '13 participated. program administrator, Anna Demeo, lecturer in physics, Jay, and Fascinated by sound, music, and seven students, Project R featured oceanic, stellar, and galactic space, Beech Hill Farm's renewable energy Sean Murphy, assistant director demonstration project. Also, COA's of information technology, gave a Dru Colbert, faculty member in sustainable business program was concert, "Smaller than Clouds," at graphic design and museum issues, highlighted with the prestigious D Schoodic Education and Research Danielle Meier '08, assistant School at Stanford University as an Center's Moore Auditorium in Winter director of admission for recruitment example of a cutting-edge program by Harbor as part of the Acadia Night Sky design & communication, and Betts YoungEntrepreneurs.com. Festival. This music is described as a Swanton '88 won a merit award combination of deep solitude and the from the American Association for COA's newest addition, Oliver Gray massive noise of cities. State and Local History for their Gies - Oggy - weighing in at 8 lbs. design of the Abbe Museum exhibit 6 ounces and stretching 21 inches, Chris Petersen, faculty member "Indians and Rusticators." Dani was born at 5:03 a.m. on September in biology, gave a talk in May at and Dru also worked on "Malaga 13 to Kylee Gies, coordinator of the University of California Santa Island: Fragmented Lives" at the international student services, and Barbara as part of Bobfest2012, the Maine State Museum in Augusta husband Ryan. retirement party for Bob Warner, with the assistance of lecturer Scott PhD, Chris' college mentor. He also Swann '86, MPhil '93 and Jordan In August, David Hales, COA's fifth talked on "College-NGO partnerships Chalfont '12. president, was chosen as president in community-based management" and CEO of Second Nature, the at the Association of Environmental Boston-based advocacy organization Studies and Sciences meeting in Santa committed to promoting sustainability Clara, California. Chris was a coauthor through higher education. on four papers that came out in Vol. 50 of the Mount Desert Island Biological The article, "Recent active contractile Laboratory Bulletin including one with faculty member in biology Helen Hess and Robin Van Dyke '11: "Patterns of Parasite Prevalence and Local Adaptation in Littorina," and another with Dale Quinby '12: "Variable While on his Fulbright in Kigali, spawning periodicity in Fundulus Rwanda, Dave Feldman, faculty heteroclitus within a New England salt member in mathematics and physics, marsh." gave a general-audience talk on chaos: "Predictable Unpredictability: The deformation in the forearc of southern At the annual Northeast Natural Mathematics of Chaos" at the Kigali Peru," by Daniel Farber, Laurence History Conference in April, COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 45 biology faculty member Nishanta Porter and Stern. In June, Nishi gave 2012: The Value of Conservation in Rajakaruna '94 moderated the the keynote talk at the Critical Zone Downeast Maine, held at COA. Davis session on plant ecology and Processes session of the 22nd annual spoke on "Reflections of Rural Maine: presented "The Influence of Geology VM Goldschmidt conference and an Economic, Social, and Demographic and Substrate on Plant Life in invited lecture at McGill University. Trends in the Upper Union River Northeastern North America" and a In July, with Jumper and Porter, he Watershed," and Chris and Davis gave poster on stresses to flora in Acadia presented a poster at the Mycological the closing remarks at the conference. National Park, created with Tanner Society of America conference at Yale In August, with Ken, Don Cass, and Harris '06, Sarah Nelson, and adjunct University. Nishi was also published COA President Darron Collins '92, faculty member Peter Vaux. Nishi in the American Journal of Botany Davis attended the 10th EcoLeague worked on four other presentations: and with Pope and Olday in the The Summit at Green Mountain College a paper given by Luka Negoita '11, Lichenologist. For details see Nishi's in Poultney, Vermont. He chairs Matthew Dickinson '12, Glen website, nrajakaruna.wordpress.com. the league's steering committee, Mittelhauser '89, and Nathaniel composed of faculty from the five Pope '07; a poster by Jason Barton In June, Davis Taylor, faculty member member schools, Alaska Pacific '12 and visiting faculty in botany Fred in economics, Ken Cline, and Chris University, COA, Green Mountain Olday; another by Margaret Stern Petersen, along with the Downeast College, Northland College, and '12; and one by Katherine Jumper Research and Education Network, Prescott College. (ecoleague.org) with adjunct faculty member David hosted the conference Convergence ACCESSIBLE CHAOS DAVE FELDMAN'S CHAOS AND FRACTALS A boiling pot of water, a dripping faucet, shifting weather patterns: these are all examples of chaos, one of the newest fields to arise from physics and mathematics. Also new is the study of fractals, the investigation of objects in which the parts look like the whole — a tree branch, for instance, looks like the tree from which it has grown. Chaos and fractals are not usually taught to undergraduates who have not had calculus. And yet Dave Feldman, faculty member in mathematics and physics, has been teaching his intellectually rigorous, Chaos and Fractals interdisciplinary class, Chaos and Fractals, for over a decade, offering advanced conceptual ideas to those An Elementary Introduction who may have only had algebra. Dave manages to make the class welcoming to a wide range of students, David P. Feldman including those who may have struggled with math in the past. OXFORD And yet there has been no published text for the class — until now. Chaos and Fractals: An Elementary Introduction, published in September by Oxford University Press, is the first textbook to emerge from COA. Some of the almost two hundred alumni who have taken Dave's class might recall problem sets, examples, and stories now published in the text. They may also remember Dave's encouragement of hands-on interdisciplinary thinking and the remarkable range of final projects, including paintings, sculptures, dance pieces, and puppet shows — even a dramatic monologue. As one alum said, recalling the section on fractals, "I loved this class and will never look at broccoli the same way again." 46 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Life Changing, World Changing COA'S CAPITAL CAMPAIGN IS NEARLY COMPLETE! [$] "I am a student at College of the Atlantic, an institution that nurtures us and empowers us to dive down to the roots of a problem — to question them — through interdisciplinary learning." Anjali Appadurai '13 TEDxDirigo Talk, October 20, 2012 COA's capital campaign enables us to offer Anjali — and her classmates — the challenge and support she needs to fulfill her potential. As one alum recently commented, "Those touched by a COA education bring a unique vision and creativity to such problems that a traditional education more often than not tends to snuff out." An additional $2,875,339 must be raised by January, 2013 to finish our $32 million capital campaign, supporting scholarships, faculty chairs, academic enhancements, and a new research vessel. To those who have already shown their support of COA's remarkable students and devoted faculty — Thank You! For more information, call 207-801-5620 or give online: WWW.COA.EDU/COACAPITCALCAMPAIGN CAMPLIGN FOR THE COLLEGE OF CHANGING. Take a handful of eager, energetic COA students, a potential church building and the longing for community space. The result? A fledgling community center in Bar Harbor. The Common Root Community Center began as an idea over tea in Margaret Fetzer's living room after students returned from Occupy demonstrations last fall. Nurtured last spring in COA's Sustainable Enterprise Hatchery, with Margaret and Benjamin Hitchcock '15 taking the lead, the center offered a pilot program last summer. The long-term hope is to renovate the parish house at St. Saviour's Church for space - though while the church is willing, the cost remains daunting. Donna Gold: How did your pilot summer go? Margaret Fetzer: The program that really stands out is Spanish. Milena Rodriguez '14 coordinated a Spanish class two times a week with help from Alan Fernald '11 and others. They've all been conversing though most everyone hadn't spoken Spanish before. And I've been really excited about the garden we started in the lawn at St. Saviour's church; we've been harvesting twice a week for the food pantry - not a ton, but what we can. It was a really modest garden, but by the end of June, students had voluntered to tend every available space. When I see the garden I get very hopeful about what the community center could be, with COA DEMOCRACY & COMMUNITY students providing the bare bones and everyone filling in what they can. Margaret Fetzer '15 and Bar Harbor's fledgling DG: And now? Common Root Community Center MF: From day one, when we'd say to someone, "We think there should be By Donna Gold a community center in Bar Harbor," the answer has been "Yes!" Now we're different groups, backgrounds, ages. relationships, knowing people, talking going to spend time visioning with Our hope is that we don't have to staff to people in the community - on a the entire Bar Harbor community, the program; we'd like it to be run as certain level these are innate skills thinking about how to bring more shoestring as possible. But we're open that we all have. Am I qualified? folks in, and continuing the programs to whatever the community wants. Probably not. But sometimes we have from the summer that did go well. to get over those boundaries and DG: And how old are you? jump in. What's amazing is that when DG: With student turnover, can it be MF: [Laughing] I'm nineteen I was I don't have the skills, I've gotten help sustainable? eighteen when I started. I've been from COA, and the community - MF: We're trying to create a involved in community organizing for there are so many great resources out community advisory council - about two-and-a-half years. Building there. 48 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Piper's Little COA Creature By Piper Dumont '02 Excerpted from her convocation speech, September 5, 2012 It is so good to be here. No matter what kind of day you're having, as you drive onto Mount Desert Island, something shifts and the beauty just gets under your skin. I'm living on a very different island — a much more populous and less mountainous island — Manhattan. And there, I'm In addition to directing the Union Theological Seminary's Edible Churchyard, Piper the director of a program called the (Michelle) Dumont '02 is working toward an interdisciplinary PhD in peace education Edible Churchyard. Which means I and food knowledge at Columbia University. In the photo (courtesy of Piper), she joins a gathering of religious leaders to break ground for a garden at St. Mary's Episcopal Church get to grow things on roofs and teach in Harlem, launching President Obama's Interfaith Service Challenge. From left: Piper; folks a little bit about the connections Imam Talib of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood; the Rev. Dr. Serene Jones, president between food and justice, and the of the Union Theological Seminary; chancellor Arnold Eisen of the Jewish Theological ways they can use food as a starting Seminary; Paul Knitter, the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions, and Culture point for community transformation. at Union Theological Seminary; and the Rev. Earl Kooperkamp of St. Mary's. | was invited here today to talk about just are — we seek to do things in a intended and maybe even falls apart College of the Atlantic, how it changed more compassionate, hopeful, and halfway through but when it's me, and how it's a part of the work I conscientious way. COA is not about done, it's much more satisfying than do. | carry COA with me — and you do being cynical and it's definitely not kicking someone else's sand castle. (and will) too. You can't help it. This about giving up — it's about believing Well, that's how I think of being the place is profound like that. Normally in something better, even if we've innovative and proactive agents of when something attaches to a host never seen it before. And most change that COA is training us to be. we call it a parasite, but | love my little revolutionarily, this place is about buddy. | keep my little COA creature believing that we can be a part of At COA, we practice harnessing and with me all the time, which can be creating that something better. developing our skills, our experiences, a great comfort when you leave the and our passions to actually create COA ecosystem especially living Simply by virtue of being here, it's something. We strive to cultivate more in a place like New York City, where a safe bet that you're searching good and beauty in the world. So, human influence often eclipses for something a little different. while there are lots of fine universities connectedness with ecological You're hoping to delve into courses, and colleges, COA differently prepares processes or awareness. concepts, complicated real-life us to innovate, imagine, build, and problems in a process of active light up the world (in an energy- While you're here, and especially inquiry and critical deconstruction. efficient way, of course). when you go out and share COA And, yes, we are really, really good at and human ecology with the world, critique and deconstruction. But COA | encourage you to do the hard and you'll learn that this stuff — human pushes us to do something more — brave work of building and creating ecology - is pretty radical. At the harder and, frankly, braver work alternatives. Some of these will COA we critique a system that that is creating alternatives. be epic failures, and others will be marginalizes and excludes those who shining successes. But that COA don't conform. We figure out how You know how it's really easy to kick creature will accompany you, rallying to respond in innovative and more apart someone's sand castle and it your fortitude to continue to believe in just ways. For me, COA cultivated only takes a moment? And it's a little your individual and collective potential what I call an everyday practice of satisfying for an instant. But then for goodness, beauty, and compassion subversive mindfulness. By this I mean when you sit down to make your — offering a constant reminder of that while questioning the dominant own, it's actually kinda hard and it that everyday practice of subversive paradigm - you know, the way things doesn't always turn out like you'd mindfulness. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 49 COA The College of the Atlantic Magazine 105 Eden Street Bar Harbor, ME 04609 College of the Atlantic's Deering Common Community Center