COLLEGE of the ATLANTIC from FRENCHMAN'S BAY MAINE'S COLLEGE OF HUMAN ECOLOGY . most accusing fingers at the educational establishment. The left alleges it has been seduced consistently by too many ill-directed federal dollars. Millions for com- puter centers; pennies for arts and humanities. The left sees no scholarly community questing for truth, but an assembly process inputting raw students and spitting interchangable components capable only of servicing the technostructure. The right is revolted by student unrest, professors who appear to support anarchy, and administrators too cowed to keep order. To it, campuses are com- WHY HAS IT WON munes catering to hard drugs, casual sex, and the raunchiest political activities. Well-heeled alumni are finding alternate needy cause for their tax-deducti- ble dollars. SO MANY FRIENDS? Increasingly, students call college a cop-out. Resisting parental pressure, many are driving cabs and tending bars outside. There is growing anti-rationalism. Techno- What sort of place can win the friendship of a popular logy, the (rational) argument goes, introduces more song writer, a Cape Cod mechanic, a former Cabinet problems than it solves. Social sciences haven't measura- member, a successful sculptor, a secretary, a former bly improved the human condition. Meaningful solu- United Nations Ambassador, a student of black studies, tions more likely will be found in emotions higher educa- and a leading Presidential contender? tion would blunt. A place like Maine's College of the Atlantic. Even the prestigious, establishment-oriented Carnegie Eddie Heyman, Alex Paine, Thomas Gates, Clark Commission on Higher Education disparages what it Fitzgerald, Ann Peach, James Russell Wiggins, Diane calls "discouraging conformity among universities at a Pierce and Edmund Muskie are alike in counting them- time when there is greatest need for innovation to meet selves among the new college's friends. change." This is at a time when higher education's friends are "Sources of support, both public and private, both dwindling in number. The United States, for many moral and financial, seem to be drying up," The reasons, is undergoing tortuous self-examination. Instead Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, president of Notre Dame, of serving as a base for national, critical introspection, has observed. "Colleges and universities," The New colleges and universities are being singled out for special York Times editorialized, "are in a state of financial indictment. Combatants left and right are pointing their shock." Columbia Univeristy last year announced an 1 $11-million deficit. At least 19 private colleges closed conviction that, within sharply-defined, self-established forever. confines, COA will be a first-rate undergraduate college. Given the near-crisis condition of U.S. higher educa- "We won't sacrifice quality," he says. "The ton, it doesn't seem likely anybody would up and world just doesn't need another second-rate college." start a small, private college. It seems even less likely Kaelber, a former associate dean at Harvard's Graduate anybody would in far-off Bar Harbor, however lovely School of Education, tends toward understatement. He Mount Desert Island may be. It seems impossible the doesn't say easily-shot-down things. He means it when venture would win wholehearted endorsement and he says College of the Atlantic will be as strong as support of some of the country's top educators and any small college in the country. most level-headed moneymen. His appraisal is founded on the belief College of the College of the Atlantic, (COA) an undergraduate, co- Atlantic is developing an academic program that is ex- educational college set to begin with 50 to 100 stu- citing, and uniquely useful and effective. dents in September, 1972, has done just that. "We are unabashedly eclectic," Kaelber says. "Our Two years ago, local residents began organizing the ideas aren't new. There probably hasn't been a really college. To many it looked like an unusually ambitious new educational idea since Jean Jacques Rousseau. Chamber of Commerce scheme to rent year-round But the way we are piecing together ideas other people accommodations. The founders hired a president, have had may be new." Edward G. Kaelber, who in a little over a year has The core of College of the Atlantic's curriculum, in- changed things dramatically. volving every student, teacher and administrator, will COA now includes among its trustees Dr. Theodore be problem-oriented studies in human ecology. Students R. Sizer, dean of Harvard's Faculty of Education; Roger and faculty will study Maine's environmental pro- W. Tubby, former Assistant Secretary of State and dean blems - because they are important, and also because of the School of Professional Studies at the Foreign they are complex, demand relating parts to wholes and Service Institute; James Russell Wiggins, former United encourage viewing systems coherently. Nations Ambassador; The Rev. Arthur C. McGiffert Jr., Melville Cote, director of student affairs, maintains president emeritus of the Chicago Theological Seminary; "true innovation probably ended with the Greeks," and Clark Fitzgerald, the sculptor. but feels COA's immediate, heavy emphasis on problem- COA is co-educational, a consideration it considers oriented studies will promote, rather than inhibit, learn- important. This is reflected by its board, which includes ing. Cote majored in guidance and counseling at Har- as trustees Dr. Elizabeth Russell, a senior staff scien- vard, and recently completed his doctoral thesis on tist at The Jackson Laboratory, and Mrs. Lawrence innovation in new colleges. Cutler, a vice president at Bangor's counseling center. Educational theoreticians, Cote says, often point out The college's ability to generate enthusiasm can in that the interdisciplinary approach needed for environ- part be attributed to President Kaelber's unwavering mental education has proven almost impossible to 2 8 Bar Island made an engrossing land-use study during the summer of 1971 0 plug into established universities where reward systems ecologics, and economics, of development. Within con- are based on departmental structure. fines of an eight-week project, the Bar Island study Rene Dubos, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "So has been comprehensive and interdisciplinary. Human an Animal" and a COA trustee, contends uni- Jill Tabbutt, a former participant in Jackson Labora- versities have created the stability necessary for build- tory's summer training program, says she discovered ing a highly technological society, but have been her study of Bar Island's aquacultural potential re- unable to deal effectively with problems created by quired knowledge of marine biology, a subject she that society. "New institutions are needed to study how hadn't realized interested her. man best can use and choose among the possibilities John Cox, a Bar Harbor resident and Wesleyan Univer- he has created," Dubos maintains. sity sophomore, discovered that years ago pressure from "It is easier to start from scratch than to impose new a few influential Bar Harborites had caused the Army ideas on existing structures," notes Samuel Eliot, Corps of Engineers to deny application for permit to Kaelber's assistant and former assistant director of admis- build a bridge to Bar Island. He says he's been drawn sions at Reed College. into a close look at high-level influence peddling. COA's environmental focus hopefully will help edu- Students are unanimous on one thing: They like the cators avoid fragmentation. Analysis and synthesis, problems approach. They decide what facet of a pro- ideally, will become alternating emphases in a single blem to study, and how to go about studying it. Their continuing learning experience. The tendency to personal involvement in decision-making is demanded. separate the study of man from the study of the natural "The Summer Program has been working well," world may best be overcome by studying human Kaelber says. "It seems new and exciting, and every- ecology, which COA broadly defines as "man's depen- body has really wanted it to work. It remains to be seen dence upon and responsibility to his environment." if it will work as well over the long haul with 600 stu- College catalogue rhetoric aside, College of the dents and 40 faculty members. But right now the omens Atlantic this summer has been demonstrating that the are good." problem-approach, at least in a somewhat contrived College of the Altantic's second, almost equally situation, can excite students. strong appeal, is its potential as a public service institu- Thirteen students and three faculty members have tion. COA will draw people skilled in environmental been studying futures for Bar Island, an undeveloped, sciences, train others, and compile resource material 74-acre island in Frenchman's Bay 500 yards off available nowhere else in Maine. If the college doesn't Bar Harbor. Results have been heartening. take positions on environmental issues, faculty members Students are reviewing Bar Island's history, its pre- and students as individuals surely will. sent resources, and future potentials. They are polling Historically, relatively undeveloped areas have been public sentiment, and inquiring into the politics con- too poor to support people trained in environmental trolling what can happen. They are investigating the sciences. These people have been able to work only 4 where a high order of economic development had to base even short-term projections. Few even know occurred. The massacre many times was complete by what a sound plan entails. Planning problems would be the time the cavalry arrived. an important part of COA's curriculum. COA would John Good, superintendent of Acadia National welcome opportunities to tie textbook conceptualizations Park and COA trustee, says he hopes COA will try long- to Maine problems. term monitoring of park resources. Deterioration, he COA has strived for closer community contact than says, can set in too slowly for ordinary detection, a most colleges. Two-thirds of the trustees are local little like bathwater that every hour gets one degree people, including Chairman Seldon Bernstein, a hotter. "At what point do you scream?" College of senior staff scientist at Jackson Laboratory; Vice Chair- the Atlantic could man the thermometer. man Leslie Brewer, a businessman; James Gower, a Edgar A. Imhoff, director of the Water Resources priest; Elmer Beal, owner of a lobster pound; and Robert Center (WRC) in Orono has kept close contact with Patterson, the founder and first president of Natural Kaelber. He says he sees COA as a source of interdis- Resources Council. ciplinary studies and human resources that could relate COA will encourage lay residents with particular com- to his work. Besides its own research, WRC makes petencies to contribute as ad hoc faculty. The college public that of others through journals, conferences, and the community, hopefully, will benefit one another. television, newsletters, etc. Kaelber feels once COA proves itself to the Island com- "Your college, in part thanks to its retreat atmosphere, munity, it will be asked to extend outward, throughout should draw specialists from all over the world," he Maine. commented. "Key scientists, busy people, want to com- College of the Atlantic should also prove useful to bine work and recreation. They just won't show at places private groups and individuals concerned with the that aren't esthetic. These people, however briefly, environment. would be considering Maine's problems. It would Frank Roberts of Old Town, a member of the Sierra have to help." Club's executive committee, has been watching COA's Any reporter who has suffered through a Maine development with interest. The Sierra Club, he says, County Commission or Town Council meeting knows has a continuing problem getting good evaluative infor- officials spend most of their time on environmental pro- mation. blems. Solid waste, sewage, litter and other pollutions Elmer Beal Jr., director of Maine Coast Heritage perch like vultures atop most agendas. Officials aren't Trust, says he has been troubled by lack of substantive environmentally trained, and waste countless hours. figures depicting how fast Maine's coastal resources are They need an accessible source of sound environmental disappearing. "We know they're vanishing, but it is al- advice. most impossible to document. The college could help Likewise, county and town planning groups try to gather information." peer 20 years ahead. Most have minimal data on which COA's information gatherers following graduation 5 are should find a dramatic demand for their services. new institutions will be needed, such as College of the Dr. Glenn Paulson, a 29-year-old protege of Rene Atlantic," he submitted. Dubos, is teaching COA's natural science seminar. He The Environmental Education Planning Group of the trained as a biochemist, and seven or eight years ago U.S. Office of Education last year recommended Federal found himself deeply interested in the environment. Now expenditures of $43.7-million for environmental educa- he seems somewhat taken aback by the demand for tion. his time and talent. Odom Fanning in "Opportunities in Environmental He served on the National Steering Committee for Careers" projected jobs in environmental management Earth Day, and is a member of New York City's Council will spring from 665,990 last year to 1,181,800 in 1980, on the Environment. He has been a consultant to CBS, "close to an unprecedented doubling in one decade." NBC, the Conservation Foundation, the Oil, Chemical Maine Second District Congressman William Hath- and Atomic Workers International Union, and the away, co-sponsor of an Environmental Education bill United Auto Workers, among others. Recently, he left that would provide grants to colleges, has written he COA for Southampton College, N.Y., where he lec- is particularly impressed with College of the Atlantic's tured as Distinguished Visiting Professor, a title he "comprehensive interdisciplinary approach to problems concedes tickled his ego. of human ecology." "People who are trained in one or another of the Dr. William Carpenter, an assistant professor of English sciences and are also interested in the environment are at the University of Chicago, shares Hathaway's feelings. in very short supply," he points out. "All levels of A graduate of Waterville High School, Dr. Carpenter government are crying for somebody who can help jumped at the chance to return to Maine to teach COA's with environmental planning. I get job offers all the summer humanities seminar. He had spent the past time." several summers photographing Maine's coast, and had The shortage of people like Paulson will grow more developed a strong feeling for his home state. acute. The environmental tide hasn't turned. Public It's safe to predict many COA graduates will develop opinion is aware, and becoming aroused. Government similar feelings. Maine is easy to love, and to want to can't ignore the issue. help care for. College of the Atlantic will help people The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and care for Maine. Sen. Muskie's Environmental Quality Improvement Act by Richard Baker of 1970 already point to a federal commitment to enforce at least minimum standards. Implementation of these and future bills will require trained environmentalists. Reprinted from MAINE TIMES Muskie, in a message to President Nixon that re- photography by Edward J. Elvidge appeared in the Congressional Record, recognized this. "To meet the fast growing demand for trained personnel, 7