Spring Issue 2012 - College of the Atlantic

COA 

The COllege Of The ATlANTiC MAgAziNe 

Volume 8 . Number 1 . Spring 2012 

coa's ties to mdi 

It Takes an Island to Nurture a College & a College to Nurture an Island 

The forty-year dance between island and college

COA 

The College of the Atlantic Magazine 

Letter from the President 3 

COA News 4 

A Modest Proposal • The Watson Journey of Blake Davis '11 5 

The Alumnus and the Whale • Dan Dendanto '91 and Stumpy 8 

The Kingfisher • Short Fiction by Lucy Atkins '12 12 

Poetry • Katharine Macko 14 

Family Involvement • Roc and Helen '80 Caivano 15 

Feature Story · COA & MDI 16 

It Takes an Island to Nurture a College and a College to 

Nurture an Island • A glimpse into the many aspects of 

the connection between COA and Mount Desert Island 

Alumni Notes 41 

Faculty & Community Notes 44 

In Memoriam 47 

Ever Wonder … ? 48 

What Human Ecology Means to Me 49 

Willowind Therapeutic Riding Center 

Story and photograph by Julia De Santis '12 

Thirteen years ago, David Folger '81 helped start Willowind Therapeutic Riding Center, Inc., a nonprofit 

dedicated to helping the disabled community through equestrian therapy. While at COA, David 

was a bird and plant ecologist, a student of Bill Drury, faculty member in biology. With Bill he helped 

establish COA's island research station on Great Duck Island (as well as an earlier one on Petit Manan). 

"Willowind evolved through a marriage," says David. "She was an equestrian familiar with therapy; I 

was a jack-of-all-trades, by then a part-time gymnastics instructor as well — and a full-time human 

ecologist. It all just came together. Now we have eight horses and an indoor riding arena." 

Continued on page 16.

COA 


Volume 8 · Number 1 · Spring 2012 

Editorial 

Editor 

Donna Gold 

Editorial Guidance Heather Albert-Knopp '99 

John Anderson 

Rich Borden 

Darron Collins '92 

Julia De Santis '12 

Michael Griffith '09 

Jennifer Hughes 

Chris Petersen 

Matt Shaw '11 

Scott Swann '86, MPhil '93 

Bonnie Tai 

Editorial Consultant 

Bill Carpenter 

Alumni Consultants 

Jill Barlow-Kelley 

Dianne Clendaniel 

dEsign 

Art Director 

Rebecca Hope Woods 

Designer Danielle Meier '08 

Coa administration 

President Darron Collins '92 

Dean of Admission 

Sarah Baker 

Dean of Development Lynn Boulger 

Associate Dean for Faculty Ken Cline 

Administrative Dean Andrew Griffiths 

Academic Dean 

Kenneth Hill 

Dean of Student Life Sarah Luke 

Associate Dean 

Sean Todd 

for Advanced Studies 

Coa Board of trustEEs 

Ronald E. Beard 

Leslie C. Brewer 

Nikhit D'Sa '06 

William G. Foulke, Jr. 

Amy Yeager Geier 

George B.E. Hambleton 

Elizabeth D. Hodder 

Philip B. Kunhardt III '77 

Anthony Mazlish 

Suzanne Folds McCullagh 

Sarah A. McDaniel '93 

Linda McGillicuddy 

life trustees 

James M. Gower 

Samuel M. Hamill, Jr. 

John N. Kelly 

Susan Storey Lyman 

William V.P. Newlin 

John Reeves 

Henry D. Sharpe, Jr. 

Clyde E. Shorey, Jr. 

Jay McNally '84 

Philip S.J. Moriarty 

Phyllis Anina Moriarty 

Hamilton Robinson, Jr. 

Walter Robinson 

Nadia Rosenthal 

Marthann Lauver Samek 

Henry L.P. Schmelzer 

William N. Thorndike, Jr. 

Joan Van der Grift 

Paul Van der Grift 

Cody van Heerden 

trustee Emeriti 

David Hackett Fischer 

Sherry F. Huber 

Daniel Pierce 

Helen Porter 

Cathy L. Ramsdell '78 

John Wilmerding 

It takes an island to nurture a college, a college to nurture an island, and a designer 

to nurture a magazine. To celebrate College of the Atlantic's fortieth year, COA's 

first alumnus president, and the fifteenth issue (has it really been that many?) of 

COA, the magazine, we are introducing a new design. Speaking personally, as editor, 

I have been gratified by the appreciation with which COA is always greeted — and 

frustrated with my inability to get critical feedback. Turns out, I should have been 

asking designers. Since January, designers Rebecca Hope Woods and Danielle Meier 

'08, with the help of Darron Collins '92, our president, have come up with numerous 

ideas for enhancing what you are now holding in your hands. Rebecca and Dani have 

the kind of eyes that see beyond what is, to what could be. 

Of course, this penetrating vision is what launched College of the Atlantic decades 

ago. The vision of our founding trustees, Leslie C. Brewer and Father James Gower, 

and the subsequent trustees, presidents, faculty, staff, alumni, and students, is 

celebrated every day at COA. 

This issue honors the very real impact that this vision has 

had on Mount Desert Island — and the nurturing that 

MDI has in turn given to our students, offering them a 

whole island as a campus, teaching all of us the meaning 

of community, and making it possible for COA to welcome 

so many passionate, smart, creative students, and then 

to send them off into the world — some to start theaters 

and theater companies on MDI, and some to save whales 

and oceans halfway around the globe. 

Thank you all. 

Donna Gold, COA editor 

The faculty, students, trustees, staff, and alumni 

of College of the Atlantic envision a world where 

people value creativity, intellectual achievement, 

and diversity of nature and human cultures. With 

respect and compassion, individuals construct 

meaningful lives for themselves, gain appreciation 

of the relationships among all forms of life, and 

safeguard the heritage of future generations. 

COA is published biannually for the College of the 

9:39:43 AM 

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 

WWW.COA.EDu 

Front and back cover: 

The cover photographs are the work of Ben Macko '01, 

who also teaches eighth-grade math at Conners Emerson 

Elementary School. Ben makes small sculptures out of wire 

and granite. These photographs that Ben took of one of 

his sculptures reflect much of what COA inspires: campus 

and island, local and global, artist and educator, heart and 

mind, but most of all, the immediacy of the present and the 

hope of the future. –DG

From the President 

Darron Collins '92, PhD 

Mount Desert island is an 

extraordinary place. We have 

a fjord and a national park; a 

smashed-shell beach and two worldclass 

genetics labs; extreme human 

population dynamics and a peak that 

affords the continent's first view of the 

rising sun. Then there's this college … 

no better place for an extraordinary 

college than an extraordinary island, i 

suppose. CoA and MDi have coevolved 

over the past forty years, reciprocally 

bending and shaping one another 

to their current form — not like a 

blacksmith coerces shape from metal, 

but rather like partners in a successful 

marriage. of course there are instances 

when the two look at each other and 

say, "Where did that come from?" or, in 

so many words, "That's not the path I 

would have chosen," but through some 

differences a mature, creative and 

powerful whole emerges from parts. 

And that's exactly what's happened on 

this island. 

Walk through the town of Bar harbor 

and you'd be hard pressed not to see 

the impact of the college. travel west 

out eagle lake Road past the schools, 

over hill and dale through Acadia, and to 

the "quiet side" and the impact does 

not wane. 

now, impact might not be the best 

term, only because it tends to conjure 

"economic impact." And, although 

business and economy are certainly 

one important shade of what CoA 

has brought to the island, i prefer to 

emphasize something more holistic: a 

connection that includes art, planning, 

intellectual and cultural fervor, 

conservation, and education. Also, the 

word "impact" feels very one-sided, very 

"subject-object." We've been shaped by 

our presence and interactions on MDi 

and see our future successes depending 

on such reciprocity. 

We live in a highly connected world. 

It's so much easier to be enchanted 

by the distant and exotic. When i look 

toward the future as CoA president, i 

see the local — right here on MDi and 

the coast of Maine — as the perfect 

laboratory for learning, exploring, and 

improving the way humans interact 

with the environment. this issue of 

COA celebrates how the island and the 

college have danced in the past and sets 

the stage for what the next dance might 

look like. 

enjoy! 

College of the AtlAntiC MAgAzine 3

NEWS 

from campuS 

AurorA BAll-eAlis WAter polo At the Y FermentAtion FAir 

November December 

Nick Jenei '09 and Lauren Rupp '05 

join the student life staff. 

Students in the class Practicum on 

Solar Energy install a solar array 

on the pottery studio, funded with 

a grant from the US Environmental 

Protection Agency and an investment 

by MDI Clean Energy Partners L3C. 

Holly Krakowski '12 stages Edward 

Albee's Zoo Story with actors Phinn 

Onens '13 and Patrick McGorrill '14. 

Anjali Appadurai '13 galvanizes the 

world when she delivers her Youth 

Statement to the plenary at the United 

Nations Framework Convention on 

Climate Change in Durban, South Africa. 

The speech, written with the help of 

Julian Velez '15 and Nathan Thanki 

'14, goes viral — from Amy Goodman 

('79) to Andrew Revkin of the New York 

Times, to media outlets around the globe. 

Naomi Klein tweets "Anjali is a hero." 

JaNuary 

At the 19th Biennial Conference on the 

Biology of Marine Mammals in Tampa, Florida, 

nine presentations come from COA and 

Allied Whale, COA's marine mammal research 

lab. Six are by COA students, with Jacqueline 

Bort MPhil '11, Jessica McCordic '12, 

Kathryn Scurci '11, and Chris Spagnoli '12 

as senior authors. 

COA students get gussied up in their 

finest for the Aurora Ball-ealis (see above), 

a formal dance under starry lights in Gates 

Community Center. 

inDepenDent stuDY 

BY iVY sienKieWYCZ '13 

Grover's Corners, New Hampshire 

comes to COA when Gina Sabatini '13 

stages Our Town, her debut as 

a director. More than thirty COA folks 

get involved, including President 

Darron Collins '92. 

Calling College of the Atlantic 

"much more than a university, it's a 

preparation for life," the Princeton 

Review listed COA as one of the nation's 

"best value" colleges and universities. 

The company's The Best Value Colleges: 

2012 Edition, includes only 150 

undergraduate schools: 75 public and 

75 private institutions. 

JAZZ FestiVAl 

poster Design 

The Osprey has launched! After acing her sea trials, Capt. Toby Stephenson '98 

sails COA's new 46-foot vessel to the COA dock for an April 14 celebration with 

trustees. She immediately goes into heavy use, taking students on the kind 

mV ospreY 

of field trips we used to only dream about. 

lAunCheD 

february march april 

COA hires two new faculty members 

for two-year positions: Jodi Baker, 

performing artist; Sarah Hall, geologist. 

Honors for COA students pour in: 

Kathryn Shlepr '13 becomes a 

Goldwater Scholar; Rachel Sullivan-Lord 

'14 receives honorable mention. Rachel 

Briggs '13 becomes a Udall Scholar. 

Kathryn Shlepr and Trudi Zundel '14 

are given honorable mentions. Adrian 

Fernandez Jauregui '15 receives a 

Kathryn W. Davis Projects for Peace 

award. He'll help create needed rain 

harvesting systems among the Guarani 

communities of his native Bolivia. 

Images: Julia Walker Thomas '12 took the first two images on top, Katie O'Brien '15 took the photo of bread. 

Second row: Jeana DeLaire '13, poster design by Khristian Mendez '15, photo by Toby Stephenson '98. 

CheCk out more stories and photos at newsworthy.Coa.edu 

COA is one of six pioneering colleges to sign the 

Real Food Campus Commitment — and the only 

one to have already exceeded the 20 percent level 

of organic, fair trade, and local food that other 

colleges are pledging to attain by 2020. Currently, 

nearly 30 percent of COA food is "real" according 

to the standards of the commitment. 

COA hosts Food Connections: Reconnecting Hands, 

Mouth & Mind through Food Systems Education, a 

conference about sustainable food and education. 

E-van arrives! Thanks to the generosity of the 

Partridge Foundation, and the research of Alex 

Pine '14, COA now has a used electric van, 

complete with solar charger, to ferry students to 

and from Beech Hill and the Peggy Rockefeller 

Farms, strengthening student connections to our 

farms without warming the atmosphere.

NEWS 

A modest ProPosAl: 

Why the World needs 

more fly fishers 

the Watson Journey of Blake davis '11 

Shortly after graduation, Blake Davis '11 set out on a yearlong fellowship from the 

Watson Foundation. His project: The Culture and Evolution of Fly Fishing Techniques. 

He visited Australia and Thailand before we caught up with him in Puerto Rico. He has 

since been to Costa Rica and India. 

the other night i kayaked into the laguna de la torrecilla beneath a cloudless, 

moonless sky, listening for the swirl of tarpon as i paddled towards the lights of 

a bayside bridge. After hustling through crowded lanes of Puerto Rican traffic, 

the solitude was overwhelming — the sounds of the highways hushed by the 

mangroves and the muddy rush of the outgoing tide. As my eyes adjusted to the 

darkness, I saw the stars emerge, reflecting faintly on the glassy water, rippling with 

the strokes of my paddle. In the peace of the moment I forgot my fishing rod and 

the tarpon. i leaned back on my kayak and soaked in the starlit sky. 

The mosquitos, never much for reflection, descended. Sharp pricks on my arms and 

legs poked me to attention. had someone been watching, they would have seen an 

apparently incapacitated kayaker suddenly begin waving his paddle like a battle axe, 

swearing madly, unaware of impending reefs and building swells as he drifted into 

an outgoing current. Absorbed in self-defense, i sped out of the lagoon into open 

ocean. When i regained my composure i found myself half a mile from shore, riding 

a riptide into the night. the calm of the water was replaced 

by the crash of hungry reefs snacking on beefy swells. 

the mosquitos high-tailed it. i put on my life jacket. 

if you have ever read or seen A River Runs Through It and you are 

considering taking up fly fishing, you probably imagine something 

considerably more romantic than being tossed against a reef in your modest kayak. 

More likely you picture yourself along the misty banks of a secluded river, casting 

long, perfect loops of line. Yet so often that gently flowing river is lined with poison 

ivy; and the unfurling line of your cast lands to hook, alas, not a spawning salmon, 

but the back of your neck, the peace of the moment broken by your own curses. 

The unadvertised truth is that fly fishing is far more diverse than its perception. 

As fishers have expanded it beyond the banks of rivers to oceans and bays, its 

traditions have become richer, as have the challenges and the responsibilities 

of anglers. 

This year I have been surprised to encounter fly fishers virtually everywhere there is 

water. I have found them prowling the beaches, swatting flies in lagoons, hunkering 

along channels, and catching dozens of species of fish. The resulting diversity of 

approaches in fly fishing is remarkable, as varied and quirky as the individuals 


NEWS 

who fish. One man I met in Australia 

used lead-impregnated fly fishing lines 

to reach ocean ledges hundreds of 

feet deep. (Traditionally, fly fishing is 

practiced in the upper few feet of the 

water column.) In the minute it took for 

his flies to reach the ocean bottom, he 

would sit at the front of his boat on a 

cooler of beer, telling me about his past 

as a concrete baron and how he spent 

his fortune. 

A middle school teacher I met in Perth 

netted shrimp and brought them home 

for observation. His flies imitating these 

shrimp were so precise they had the 

same number of meticulously arranged 

legs as their subjects, the captured 

shrimp. He used these flies to catch brim 

beneath concrete overpasses and along 

downtown jetties, sloshing through the 

streets in his waders. In Puerto Rico I 

met an angler so fed up with constantly 

changing his lures he designed a knot 

that could be loosened and refastened 

with a few quick movements. Because 

this knot tended to break more easily 

under pressure, he switched to fishing 

line twice as heavy. 

At first I viewed the adaptations of fly 

fishers as interesting but insignificant 

beyond their novelty. After all, it is not 

altogether surprising that fly fishing is 

practiced differently than it is advertised. 

However the more time I spend with 

fishers, the more I realize the impetus 

for these approaches reflect worrying 

trends in recreational fishing, including 

fly fishing, trends that are more often 

discussed in the context of commercial 

fishing. One does not make a reusable 

fishing knot unless one has to change 

lures frequently, often the case 

with persnickety fish that have seen 

extensive pressure from recreational 

fishers. Similarly, one does not go to 

the trouble of fishing hundreds of 

feet deep if there are large and more 

readily accessible fish inshore. 

The more fishers I have met, the 

more familiar I have become with 

decline. Decline is a common thread 

entangling virtually all of the world's 

fisheries today. There is 

nearly universal loss in 

the abundance of habitat 

and the numbers 

and diversity of 

fish species. This 

decline is even 

more worrisome 

among the people and 

communities that depend on fish for 

food and livelihoods. Amidst these 

trends, I am aware someone retracing 

my wanderings in a few decades would 

likely see far fewer fish and fishers. 

The gods forbid I have children, would 

they be able to walk the saltwater flats 

in Exmouth, Australia, and see tuna 

erupting along reefs? 

As I struggle to imagine solutions, I 

am often reassured by others that 

the human capacity for creativity is 

our greatest asset and hope. Those 

who study fisheries purport that, if 

anything, technological innovation 

and clever management will prevail 

against overfishing and development 

of vital habitat and pollution. But 

from what I have seen of fishers, our 

creative solutions have only allowed 

us to desperately pursue fish to all 

watery corners of the earth. Fly fishers 

are as guilty of this as commercial 

fishers. When one area is "fished out," 

we move on to other more pristine 

locations and develop more effective 

methods. By comparison, the steps 

taken to protect and restore fisheries 

seem more a matter of persistence, 

instances where a fair amount of 

elbow grease has temporarily set a 

dysfunctional system into motion and 

helped fish and fish habitat recover. 

What we need to ensure the future 

of fisheries, I have come to believe, 

is the approach of fly fishers. While 

the world views fly fishers with misty 

eyes, its depiction of us has somehow 

failed to capture the determination of 

individuals who choose a pastime that is 

intentionally difficult. Few people see us 

avoiding the reefs in our modest kayaks, 

combatting mosquitos, being irradiated 

by the sun, all for the simple pleasure 

of holding and releasing a squiggly 

piece of nature whose name we can 

pronounce in stuttering Latin. 

What we need in our approach to 

fisheries is a similar balance between 

educatedness and doggedness, an 

ability to make a determination and 

follow through no matter the obstacles, 

the complaints, and the inevitable 

injury to some. While I have seen laws 

being put into place to protect fish 

and fish habitat, I have seen far fewer 

instances where these laws were 

effectively enforced. Few seem willing 

to limit the amount of people who can 

make a living off the water. And yet if 

we do not, dwindling stocks will do that 

for us, perhaps eliminating those jobs 

altogether. 

We need more than innovation or 

further awareness if we want there to 

be fish in the future. We need people 

who are going to push for these 

changes because they have felt those 

losses slip through their fingers. While 

we have been educated to believe that 

a greater capacity for thought will be 

our salvation to so many environmental 

binds, I would add that we also need 

to be far more uncompromising and 

compassionate if we are to inspire more 

than awareness. What we need is grit. 

What we need is gusto. 

6 College of the AtlAntiC MAgAzine

NEWS 

Those who fly fish are usually aware that their method of fishing is not the most 

efficient. Yet among them there is a commonly held sentiment that the more 

difficult path renders sweeter results. This appreciation is what fly fishers have to 

offer. This is also why, if you own a copy of A River Runs Through 

It, you should burn it. Watching it will leave you infatuated but 

uninformed, like falling in love after a first date. If you insist on 

keeping your copy of this movie; or if you cannot find the matches, 

then you may at least want to take away something else from 

this famous portrayal of fly fishing. That is, fish are worth saving 

solely for the sake of there being fish. Not for their being caught, not for peoples' 

continued livelihoods, but so that fish can continue to swim. No one understands 

this better than fly fishers. 

What we need is grit. 

What we need is gusto. 

Read more about Blake's adventures at fishwithblake.wordpress.com. 

Blake Davis '11 takes a break from restoring the 1987 Sentra he bought to help him 

College of the AtlAntiC MAgAzine get around to fishing grounds in Puerto Rico. Photos courtesy of Blake Davis. 7

NEWS 

Dan Dendanto '91 and Toby Stephenson '98 (top) and Lindsey 

Nielsen '13 (below) work on installing Stumpy in the North 

Carolina 8 Museum of Natural Sciences. 

College of the AtlAntiC MAgAzine

The Alumnus 

And The WhAle: 

Stumpy'S SEcond LifE 

by Donna Gold 

NEWS 

of all the large whales, right whales are 

the most endangered. And those living 

nearby, in the north Atlantic, are the 

rarest: only about 450 survive. So when a 

female named Stumpy was killed off the 

Virginia coast in 2004 — presumably by a 

ship strike — a pall went over the scientific 

and conservation communities. 

But the celebration of this whale's life at 

the just-opened nature Research Center 

of the north Carolina Museum of natural 

Sciences in Raleigh might possibly help to 

conserve more whales even than Stumpy 

and her future progeny would have 

engendered. 

the museum is impressive, a $56 million 

expansion focused on research methods 

— how we know what we know about 

science. A focal point is the three-ton, fiftyfoot 

skeleton of Stumpy. the creator of 

the exhibit is Dan DenDanto '91, who runs 

the business Whales and nails on Mount 

Desert island, employing a crew of local 

alumni and students: CoA boat captain 

toby Stephenson '98, Courtney Vashro 

'99, lindsey nielsen '13, and Allied Whale 

intern Jennifer oraze. 

though Dan is nearing completion of a 

PhD in marine biology from the University 

of Maine orono, and is also a research 

associate at Allied Whale, CoA's marine 

mammal research lab, his range spans 

far beyond science. Spend an hour with 

him — especially if you're lucky enough 

to be near Stumpy or one of the other 

mammals he has articulated — and 

you'll feel the power of the whale's life 

transmitted through Dan's passion. his 

comprehension comes from reading the 

individual's bones as a scientist, from 

handling them as a craftsman and 

artist, from informed curiosity as 

a forensic researcher, and from 

his concern as a conservationist: 

the epitome of hands-on, 

interdisciplinary, heartfelt 

human ecology. 

Stumpy was first sighted in 

1975. While right whales are 

distinguishable by the markings on 

their heads, Stumpy was known by 

her broken tail, likely the result of an 

early encounter with a vessel. the 

strike left her with a stump, hence 

her name, but it didn't stop this 

massive creature, the third-largest 

right whale ever recorded. And 

because she was observed with five 

different calves over thirty years, 

she was also called "the mother of 

right whales." 

there may have been more calves. 

We can assume Stumpy was at 

least forty years old, since it takes 

a decade for a female to mature to 

the point of spending a year carrying 

a calf. She could have been sixty. 

Right whales are fertile for a long 

time, says Dan. While it's possible 

to age a right whale by plumbing 

the inner wax core of its ear, where 

an annual ring grows, the core 

decomposes quickly. And Stumpy's 

ears "were snapped clean off during 

the collision with the ship," Dan 

says. in fact, her rostrum — or beak 

— was broken and severed. in his 

reconstruction, Dan has offset the 

rostrum some six inches from her 

body to show the impact of the 

ship strike. 

having articulated whales for the new 

Bedford Whaling Museum, harvard 

University Museum of Comparative 

zoology, and nantucket Whaling 

Museum in Massachusetts, and for 

new hampshire’s Phelps Science 

Center at Philips exeter Academy 

and the Seacoast Science Center, 

among other institutions, Dan has 

learned to read a whale through its 

bones. this fertile mom was plagued by 

bone deformity. Where there ought to 

have been soft cartilage between her 

vertebrae, there are numerous bone 

spurs — much like what happens to 

humans as they grow stiff with age. "This 

animal is fully fused," says Dan. "each 

one of these vertebrae is turned entirely 

into bone" — a condition indicating a 

female of a certain age. Add to that the 

numerous bone crumbs that were found 

inside her body — presumably from 

what was likely the ship encounter that 

gave her the name of Stumpy — and this 

poor mother could have used a daily, 

whale-sized dose of Aleve. 

And yet it was likely not her arthritic 

bones that caused her death. Right 

whales are not afraid of noise. A whale 

swimming across the bow of a vessel 

may not even know it's in danger. even 

more tragic, the most vulnerable whales 

tend to be females. Pregnant females. 

While most northern right whales overwinter 

near Cape Cod Bay, the pregnant 

ones head to the warmer waters off 

Virginia into georgia and northern 

florida. Anyone familiar with the coast 

knows that these preferred calving 

grounds happen to be the same as one 

of the nation's busiest shipping lanes. 


NEWS 

Yes, Stumpy was pregnant. She was 

close to giving birth when she was hit. 

lisa gatens is the mammals curator 

at the north Carolina museum. When 

Stumpy was discovered, floating and 

dead, it was lisa who was called to meet 

the vessel towing her in; some years 

later, it was her team that contracted 

Dan to articulate Stumpy. "he knows 

the anatomy as well as anyone, he 

knows the animal," says lisa. "his 

team was amazing. they were just so 

pleasant, smart, and capable — and they 

produced this wonderful outcome. they 

were a delight to work with." 

Dan's journey to whale articulation 

began while a student at CoA. it was 

1987, Dan's first year at the college, 

and he was already working at Allied 

Whale. That winter a fin whale mandible 

lying on the ground near the Arts and 

Sciences Building was struck by a snow 

plow. it galvanized Dan. "We should 

do something, turn it into an exhibit," 

he said at the time. Working on an 

independent study guided by former 

CoA taxidermist Skip Buyers-Basso 

'83, Dan created the whale skull that 

remains CoA's landmark icon. "i've 

coauthored five scientific papers 

and I think there are fifteen people 

who have read them," he says."But 

i've done a dozen exhibitions, and 

with this one i'll go over a million 

visitors a year who have seen a 

whale that i have put together. 

it has been a privilege to have 

the opportunity to convey this 

conservation message." 

for seven months, Stumpy's skeleton 

filled the three-car garage Dan uses as 

his studio. Her flippers sat in the central 

hallway of the home off the Tremont 

Road he shares with his wife, alumna and 

teacher Megan Smith '90, and their two 

sons, gus and Rocco. But before Dan 

could receive Stumpy's bones, they had 

to be separated from her body, a process 

that's given to nature. Stumpy's remains 

were buried in a huge manure pile, where 

10 College of of the AtlAntiC MAgAzine

Yes, Stumpy was pregnant. 

Indeed, she was close to giving 

birth when she was hit. 

NEWS 

installation act. Says Dan, "it brought 

a warm feeling of satisfaction to see 

mother and offspring reunited." 

Stumpy did not die in vain. Researchers 

at the Woods Hole Oceanographic 

institution cross-sectioned her jaw to 

determine the bone density and level 

of force it would take to break it. This 

information led directly to guidelines 

asking large vessels to slow down to ten 

knots when patrol flights discover right 

whales in the area. At that speed, say 

scientists, a strike should be survivable. 

While three right whales were killed the 

same year Stumpy died, since these 

guidelines were created only one 

other right whale has been killed by a 

ship strike. 

worms and other creatures spent about a 

year cleaning off the muscle and blubber. 

to get the skeleton absolutely clean, 

Dan mimicked the old whalers, trying 

the remaining fat by boiling the oil out of 

the bones in huge vats on a woodstove 

outside his home. Otherwise, he says, the 

oil can leach notoriously unpleasant odors 

into the museum for years after. 

there are a multitude of challenges in 

accurately reassembling a skeleton. When 

Stumpy's bones were delivered, they 

laid out to thirty-nine feet. But Stumpy 

measured fifty-two feet when she was 

found. After subtracting two feet for flesh 

and blubber, Dan used his knowledge of 

the skeletal frame to get the proportions 

right, widening the spaces toward the 

tail section as they would be in a living 

creature, allowing for more movement. 

to space out the vertebrae, Dan created 

an inorganic cartilage out of epoxycoated 

foam and papier maché, 

threading the bones onto hidden 

steel pipes and rebar — and 

working with the museum on 

the logistics of hanging the threeton 

exhibit. 

And then there was the fetus. 

Stumpy's calf, the museum and 

Dan's crew all agreed, ought to 

rest within her womb again. But 

scientists didn't know what shape he 

would have taken. Toothed whales 

curl like a question mark inside the 

mother. But since whales emerge 

tail first, there's some speculation 

that the large ones may straighten 

out well before birth, so Dan left 

the fetus straight. Raising the 

seventeen-foot, full-term whale 

back into the mother was the final 

Whether it's the baby floating inside her 

womb, the mark of heroism revealed by 

her stump, or her long child-bearing life, 

Stumpy seems to mean something to all 

who connect to her. There were times 

during my visit to Dan's studio when my 

group had tears in our eyes. We are not 

alone, says Lisa Gatens — she's finding 

that same connection already among the 

workers in this new museum wing. 

Who knows what inspiration will result 

from Stumpy's second life inside a 

museum, detailing what we know of 

her story from the very bones that are 

hanging — the severed rostrum, the 

cross-sectioned jaw, the bone spurs — 

as well as the methods used to study 

living whales? 

the museum opening was a twenty-four 

hour affair. Lisa says she spent six hours 

of it standing beneath Stumpy, stopping 

people, saying, "You need to know about 

this whale. You need to know about her 

life. She is important!" 

All photos by Keith Rittmaster of the North Carolina 

Maritime Museum. 


The Kingfisher 

Short fiction by lucy Atkins '12, illustration by Jordan Chalfant '12 

A 

faint blush tinges the 

undersides of the clouds 

through the spruce trees. 

With each recovery, a cluster of drips 

from his paddle spreads into the glassy 

surface; with each pull, whirlpools thick 

as his thumb twist in front of the blade 

momentarily before disappearing. in 

this curved shell, he glides. So thin yet 

strong. the combination of canvas 

and cedar never fails to amaze him. 

even paddling solo she's handling 

nicely — the empty bow slaps a little 

against the water, but the curved sides 

are balanced. Just enough creaking 

to remind him that she's made out of 

trees. Another one set afloat for the 

first time, another winter tacked and 

glued together into this finished whole, 

streamlined and seaworthy. Maybe this 

is what it's like to experience a child 

growing up. 

A black-throated green calls from 

the shore. that one always gets stuck 

in his head — see see see I'm green! 

Another calls in response. Winter 

lingered and spring had a slow start this 

year, but now the warblers are finally 

back. Blackburnian, yellow, chestnutsided, 

parulas, and these black-throated 

greens dashing between the spruce 

boughs this morning. Such welcome 

colors after winter when the only 

bright is the tiny splash of red on the 

woodpeckers' heads. these migrants 

are strangely bold, letting him get within 


a yard or so, posing and cocking their 

heads as he snaps away. As he paddles 

slowly along the shore, the buzzing voice 

fades, replaced by the striking song of 

the yellow warbler. Sweet-sweet-sweet, I'mso-sweet! 

As he drifts, he breathes in deeply, 

catching tendrils of mixing aromas in 

his nostrils. the wet dirt smell of spring 

is the first to sharpen his senses after 

winter; noticing this nuanced, multilayered 

fragrance, he knows summer 

is coming. he wishes there were words 

to communicate smells — they catch in 

the net of his memory for an instant as 

they blow past, before fading completely 

out of grasp. he aches to somehow hold 

onto these memories, some of which 

aren't even his, but stem from books 

or stories — like the flowery sweetness 

drifting over this lake that reminds him 

of humid southern nights on wraparound 

porches, wicker swings he's 

never lazed on. Dusty warmth radiates 

from the large boulders along the shore 

— he wants to bask on one and then 

jump in, splashing — and the shiny, 

clean smell of the varnished canoe and 

the liquid freshness of water mingles 

with his skin. We can photograph and 

paint the world we see, but why can't 

we inhale these fragrances and exhale 

our own creative blends based on our 

mood? this evening he would breathe 

out pure, sweet cedar, spiced with a 

touch of acid green from the new 

spruce tips. 

And there's something about being 

on the lake after a whole winter on 

land, a whole winter working this boat 

with his hands and waiting to work the 

water with his paddle. Why is it only now 

that he's getting out? All the excuses 

lose their meaning. his muscles fall 

easily into the motions — abdominals 

twisting back and forth, frame steady, 

wrists curling fluidly for the quick J at the 

end of each stroke. his thumb brushes 

against the silky gunwale. good — skin 

on wood. he smiles. What a scene for a 

new boat — coming on sunset over the 

flat, flat water, hermit thrush descants 

rippling through the woods. he paddles 

without effort, feeling like he could go 

at this pace for a long time. he hangs 

on the pause of silence with himself — 

so different from the coming months 

guiding and working at camp. 

Rounding the point he can just see 

a figure on the far shore through the 

fading light. it is later than he realized. 

Back in town M will be expecting him 

soon for dinner, to chatter about her 

day and kiss him with 

wine-stained lips. Might as 

well get this over with. he 

realizes he's calmer than 

he expected. Picking up 

the pace of his strokes, he 

digs deeper into the velvet 

surface of the water. 

As he gets closer, the 

figure takes form and her 

familiar features come into view. her hair 

is loose and pulled over one shoulder, 

bright against her brown flannel shirt. 

She's wearing a red skirt that ripples 

around her calves. With her toe she 

nudges rocks on the pebbly beach, 

bends, pauses. Crouching, she skims 

a flat one across the water — five-sixseven-eight-nine-ten. 

Pretty good. the 

rings expand and run into each other 

before slowly vanishing. he crosses the 

fading trail, leaving a tiny wake and his 

own string of droplets. She looks up 

from her scuffing and pacing. Arcs her 

arm out. he tips the blade of his paddle 

in her direction, nodding. Somehow 

calling out would break the stillness. And 

his throat is gruff. 

he eases up for the last few 

strokes. gravel crunches from the road 

and another figure appears through 

the trees. he concentrates on making 

his strokes fluid but does not pull 

much water, prolonging these last few 

moments afloat and separate from 

them. the man scurries down the beach. 

"Sorry i'm late," he hears the man say, 

kissing V on the cheek. his hand winds 

round her waist. 

"Congratulations," he eases the 

bow partway up the beach, telling 

himself to smile. 

V's eyes are huge. She stands, 

hands dangling, mouth opening. "When 

— wait... — when you said a surprise — i 

had no idea —" she stammers. noticing 

him again, she jumps to grab the 

upturned triangle to stabilize the boat, 

"Sorry —" sliding her hands along the 

bright wood. 

"My gosh — gorgeous," she 

breathes, looking up at him. She sighs, 

shakes her head. "i just can't believe it." 

"And what might be the name of 

this shiny beauty?" D wants to know. 

"i haven't named it yet." he climbs 

out onto the beach. "nothing 

seemed right." 

The harsh rattle of a kingfisher 

punctuates the air, and the 

three of them look up to see the 

dark shape cutting low over the 

water through the dusk. 

The harsh rattle of a kingfisher 

punctuates the air, and the three of 

them look up to see the dark shape 

cutting low over the water through 

the dusk. 

V strokes the gunwales, still looking 

dumbstruck. She turns to D. "What 

about Kingfisher?" she asks in a low voice. 

"Seems appropriate for a blue 

vessel," D agrees. 

they let the name hang in the air 

for a moment. it doesn't make him 

immediately cringe like so many first 

attempts at names. he nods slowly. 

"Kingfisher it is," he says. "i'll swing by 

and paint the lettering tomorrow." 

After loading the canoe onto her 

toyota wagon, he congratulates 

them again. this time the words 

slide out easier and he doesn't have to 

tell himself to smile. he bends into his 

own car. Without the blue boat strapped 

to the top he feels like he's missing 

something. But now there's space for 

his own canoe. he thinks for a moment 

about where he'll be in a few days — 

riding waves on the George with old 

friends, loaded down with all the food 

and gear they'll need for three weeks 

in the wilderness. through the open 

window a few straggling peepers pierce 

the still air and another trickle of hermit 

thrush melody floats past. He inhales the 

whiffs of the last crabapple blossoms as 

they mix with the cedar dust on his wool 

shirt, and blows out a slow trickle — sunsoaked 

skin on open water, afternoon 

thunderstorms, dense spruce forests. 

Back at the shop, the paddle he'll use 

on the George is waiting for its final coat 

of varnish. 


Poetry 

By Katharine Macko, Sustainable Business Program Administrator 

Photograph by Ben Macko '01 

When It Rains It Pours 

Peering In 

Your eyes tasted salty 

When I kissed them, 

Your pathos crystalized on my lips 

And I wanted to kiss them again. 

I want to carry away your sorrows by the teaspoon 

To cleanse whatever wounds are buried deep, 

To hold the salted memories you reluctantly share. 

There are, I have heard, salt mines beneath us 

With drifts of the stuff piled stories high. 

But this reservoir is private 

And it would not be wise to trespass. 

Instead I will stay here at the surface 

With my hands full of teaspoons 

And wait for you. 

What if my mouth and throat 

Were lined with moss 

And you could look 

Way down in 

And see ferns 

Growing far below 

January Moss 

For now, the ice has relaxed its grip on the ground 

Revealing an unfathomable moss. 

These mid-winter thaws always make me ache 

Like a lover who loves it all too much 

Though she knows her heart will be broken 

Once the cold comes back. 

And yet, seeing moss in winter 

I want to twine myself around this life like a vine 

Hug it until my arms get tired 

Whisper I love you I love you I love you 

Whisper that after the thaw, 

Feeling is what comes rushing back. 


Family Involvement, Year After Year: 

Roc and helen '80 Caivano 

By Donna gold 

the early 1970s was not a time 

to walk the straight and narrow, 

even for an architect. Roc Caivano 

had just gotten his degree from Yale 

University; but instead of completing 

his license, he went on the road: "it 

was a time when people drifted around 

the country looking for new meaning 

and reinventing why we do things," 

says Roc. "We were a happy, vagabond 

tribe" — only this tribe was focused on 

environmental design, including building 

a Maine home for William Sloane Coffin 

in Muscongus Bay. helen, his young wife, 

was their business manager. "She made 

it all work," says Roc. Just as Roc and 

helen were considering settling down, 

Roc saw a notice in the New York Times. A 

tiny, environmentally focused college in 

Bar harbor was looking for someone to 

teach architecture. 

Roc and Helen '80 Caivano with Kate in the baby carrier. 

Photo courtesy of the Caivanos. 

At the interview, Roc found that his 

bedside reading — ian Mcharg, the 

Whole Earth Catalog, Aldo leopold — 

were books being taught at CoA. he 

showed an animated film featuring 

pollution-emitting vehicles eating up the 

smaller creatures of the universe. he 

was hired. 

"We were blown away by the place," 

Roc says. "there were some very bright 

teachers, some very courageous — and 

some confused — students, and an 

amazing bunch of trustees who were 

pretty powerful people in the larger 

world." helen remembers a fundraiser 

held at the home of founding trustee 

elizabeth (Betty) thorndike. it was one 

of those blessed gatherings of music, 

conversation, and beauty. helen's 

parents were visiting and her father, JR 

Mcgreggor, was so charmed he wrote 

a check. Right away, he received a note 

of thanks. he kept giving. Both the 

Caivanos and the Mcgreggors are on 

CoA's year-after-year donor list. 

But environmental design "literally 

was not in the vocabulary of the time," 

says Roc. "COA defined it," adds Helen. 

Roc's curriculum offered guidelines 

that foreshadowed those required for 

leadership in energy and environmental 

Design, or LEED certification: "energy 

efficiency, healthy materials, air quality, 

recycled and locally harvested materials. 

There was no such thing as certification 

then; this was coming from students and 

other faculty at CoA." each spring, Roc's 

advanced students, having learned "how 

to think in an environmentally thoughtful 

way," designed a building; come fall, a 

new crop of students built it. the pottery 

studio — formerly a greenhouse — is 

one of those structures. 

Meanwhile, helen was getting a CoA 

degree and raising Kate — the first child 

born at CoA. "everyone was invested 

in her," says helen. one memorable All 

College Meeting, toddler Kate wandered 

off from her parents. Says Roc, "she 

tripped and fell and started crying. We 

couldn't get to her, but the students 

in the front row passed her over their 

heads, diagonally across the whole 

auditorium to us. She was bawling when 

the first students picked her up and 

beaming by the time she got to us." 

Kate, administrator of CoA's Sustainable 

Business Program is married to Ben 

Macko '01, and their daughter Juniper is 

COA's first third-generation child. 

helen graduated in 1980, having created 

a literary and art magazine, Voices 

of the Atlantic, for her senior project. 

then they left so Roc could obtain his 

license by apprenticing with architect 

Robert Venturi. When they returned to 

practice in Bar harbor, Roc designed 

the Blair/tyson student residence, an 

environmental milestone in its time. 

helen joined the alumni board, taking 

pride in how varied and committed 

the alumni are. With helen nodding in 

agreement, Roc concludes. "i love CoA 

and will forever. there's something good 

about it and always has been." 


Willowind Therapeutic 

Riding Center 

Story and photograph by 


Over the years, Willowind has 

served many. There have been 

stroke victims, children with Down's 

syndrome, others with sensory 

integration and attention deficit 

disorders, or general learning 

disabilities, teens at risk, and 

people with autism and cerebral 

palsy, to name a few. Riders 

establish relationships with the 

horses that can lead to increased 

self-confidence and personal 

growth, and the farm is designed 

to be a safe place full of love 

and encouragement for riders to 

take risks and build skills: social, 

emotional, and physical. 

"Was there ever a point you weren't 

sure you could keep going?" I ask 

owner David Folger '81. Laughing, 

he answers, "Every day when I wake 

up and realize I have to take care 

of eight horses!" And then more 

seriously, "I am married to it. I raised 

three kids doing it. Doing this … you 

don't get a break or a vacation. 

There isn't much money in it; it's a 

choice of lifestyle, and a busy one." 

Willowind is supported in 

part by private benefactors, 

"fairy godparents who assist 

tremendously," but funding is an 

issue. Still, from the beginning, 

Willowind has been a community 

effort. "When we put up the first 

barn, we organized it in the tradition 

of an old-time barn raising, Shakerstyle. 

Every one of my local COA 

friends came out, and their families 

were banging nails right alongside 

their neighbors. We put that barn up 

in a week, and it was quite a scene, 

everyone lifting to raise the walls." 


COA & MDI 

it takes an island to nurture a College 

& a College to nurture an island 

introduction by Donna gold 

By now, many of us know CoA's creation myth, how years after they were Bar harbor high School football teammates, father 

Jim gower ran into businessman les Brewer on Cottage Street and said, "i'd like to do something to help this island." 

immediately, les responded: "let's start a college." 

Concern and action: CoA's DnA. A problem exists, what do we need to know to resolve it? And what are the implications of these 

possible solutions? four decades ago, the issue was the island economy; CoA was the answer. two decades ago, CoA folks 

wondered whether the peregrine, extinct in the northeast, could be reintroduced to Acadia national Park. if so, what would be 

the impact on nearby seabirds? What about park trails? CoA students and faculty raised the questions and then supplied the 

information that determined the best way forward. More recently, hannaford sought to build a larger supermarket in the center of 

the island. What would that look like? Using both GIS and planning savvy, COA students, staff, and faculty offered images to help the 

community decide. 

human ecology in action. Could father Jim and les Brewer have imagined such a fertile connection between island and college? Did 

they know a college would also mean alumni launching restaurants, or working in the Jackson laboratory? 

For forty years, Mount Desert Island has offered its park and ocean and intertidal zones, its scientific laboratories, its mentors — 

whether they be lobstermen, potters, teachers, poets, landscapers, plumbers, or scholars — its museums, restaurants, stores, 

even its tourists to CoA students. this island has been so welcoming that many of our alumni have remained. in return, the CoA 

community has seeded the island with architects, art exhibits, builders, designers, gardeners, lectures, mentors, movies, musicians, 

naturalists, plays, produce, puppeteers, restaurants, teachers, and more. So much, in fact, that the following pages barely scratch 

the surface of this intricate dance between island and college. 


Planning Our Places: 

the human ecology 

of land Use 

Story and illustration by Michael Griffith '09 

on the last day of winter it was 

already mild in Mt. Desert 

island's Salisbury Cove where 

i had come to experience village 

atmosphere, abandoning my car near 

the community's tiny post office. It didn't 

take long to walk the place, of course, or 

to understand its charms. Beyond the 

post office were clapboard cottages, a 

simple church, and a quietly repurposed 

one-room schoolhouse. frenchman Bay 

lapped around the edge of every view. 

Looping back to the post office, I asked 

an attendant — only one would fit 

behind the service window — about 

the building's age. "it must be from the 

sixties or seventies," she said, smiling 

patiently down the tunnel of another 

season, which doubtless held in store 

many such questions. "The post office 

boxes are from earlier, though — 

probably about a hundred years ago. 

originally they were in the general 

store." 

i leaned back from the formica counter 

to see the beautiful, cast mailboxes 

lodged rather ruthlessly in a wall of 

fake wood paneling. next door, the old 

general store had not fared much better. 

"it's two apartments now," said the 

attendant. "Kind of sad." Still, like all the 

older buildings in Salisbury Cove, it was 

set near the road, and no matter 

the material, or contemporary use, it 

related well to its surroundings. Built 

before the advent of air conditioning, 

electricity, and probably the automobile, 

how could it not? 

After the Second World War, America's 

cities and towns sprawled and its villages 

all but disappeared. for a country 

drunk on victory, rich in land, and long 

enamored of progress, expansive, autoreliant 

suburbs were irresistible: grass, 

glass, and gasoline. the strange, squat 

houses unveiled in levittown, new York, 

in 1949 were an even more decisive 

rejection of history and urbanity. the 

optimistic "ranch house" offered a 

modern open plan and the illusion of 

space. every quarter-acre plot of land 

was to become a ranch, every yard a 

private realm of sloping lawns, and every 

horizon a frontier. 

By the late sixties this frontier looked 

like a mirage, but as early as 1961 Jane 

Jacobs had published The Death and 


Life of Great American Cities, a stunning 

critique of modernist planning policies, 

and Richard Yates had thoroughly 

debunked the myth of suburban 

happiness in his novel Revolutionary 

Road. the verdict was in: urban "towers 

in parks" and suburban property 

setbacks alienated people from each 

other, even destroyed once-thriving 

communities. one decade of poor 

planning, however, expressing itself in 

a metastasizing built environment and 

politically charged municipal policies, 

takes many decades to undo — and 

sometimes leads to intractable changes, 

and losses. 

in the early seventies, at the newly 

established College of the Atlantic, 

urbanites sought refuge from rapidly 

swelling cities. "Society seemed blighted," 

said Joanne Carpenter, faculty member 

emerita, in her 2008 commencement 

speech, "and many of us longed to 

begin anew away from urban centers." 

Big, abstract thinking had created 

urban blight; it was time to return to 

nature, like the transcendentalists 

had, to rediscover what it meant to be 

human. Following Thoreau, "the first 

generation of the college was interested 

in environmental design focused on 

domestic architecture," says Rich 

Borden, faculty member in psychology. 

"We were intrigued by the possibility of 

building a solar home at this latitude." 

they made that possibility a reality. 

"Dick Davis, COA's first philosopher," 

continues Rich, "built the first solar 

home in Maine to get a conventional 

mortgage." the college also began 

holding workshops on solar energy 

and gardening, sharing the knowledge 

and skills it would take to "begin 

anew." As these techniques became 

increasingly common, perspectives 

evolved. According to Rich, "there was a 

shift in scope from the individual family 

unit or group to a broader sense of 

community." 

Soon advances in technology, ideas 

about community planning, and 

circumstance caught up with 

one another. in 1987, John Anderson 

was hired by the college as a faculty 

member in environmental sciences. only 

a year before, he had used geographic 

information Systems (giS) technology to 

map population distributions of white 

pelicans for his doctoral dissertation at 

the University of Rhode island. 

giS mapping allows scientists, designers, 

and planners to digitize geographical 

data on layered maps that have the 

power to tell complex stories about 

the land and its populations. layers 

can be isolated or combined to help 

users analyze, manipulate, and display 

information on everything from 

topography to tax jurisdiction. With giS 

you can underlay a map with geological 

data or overlay it with the locations of 

wetlands, property lines, waste collection 

routes, zoning ordinances, and so on, 

until a complex ecology reveals itself. 

John's experience told him that the 

technology had real interdisciplinary 

potential — perfect for CoA. 

John wrote a national Science 

Foundation grant and, "we were off 

to the races." What would a human 

ecological giS lab look like? in 1991 

the Center for Applied human ecology 

was formed and "gave us an umbrella 

for bridging between the curriculum 

and a more project-based community 

involvement," says Rich. "CAhe really 

allowed us to merge ecology, planning, 

and policy in our thinking and to expand 

the curriculum to include areas like 

planning and policy in a very intentional 

way," better equipping students and 

faculty to engage real world problems. 

they began with Mount Desert island. 

in the eighties there were US geological 

Survey and US Soil Conservation 

maps of MDi, but these were drawn to 

different scales and did not incorporate 

information from the island's four towns 

— whose zoning maps and plot maps 

were drawn to still different scales. 

Creating a unified map of the island 

and its towns would have been an 

enormous — and enormously tedious 

— job; nobody was doing it. "the maps 

could not be physically combined," says 

isabel Mancinelli, a planner for the park 

service at the time. But at CoA's new 

giS lab, Kurt Jacobsen '90 and gordon 

longsworth '91 began digitizing maps of 

the island's four towns. 

"island-wide planning was the phrase we 

used," says gordon, who is now head 

of the lab. "it was a way we were trying 

to shift people's thinking to look at the 

island as a whole, to break down the 

town line barriers. Watersheds cross 

these boundaries, and so do wildlife, 

and there are island-wide issues like 

solid waste and recycling, where if towns 

partnered up, there were savings." 

"That's the first time that COA provided 

something really concrete to the towns," 

says terry Kelley, executive director 

of the Mount Desert island housing 

trust. "it generated a lot of good will. 

People saw that COA offers a very 

good education; students were doing 

something the towns wouldn't have 


True to their village setting, older buildings on Salisbury Cove's 

Old Bar Harbor Road relate to the street — and each other. 

Sprawl-type development pushes buildings away from property 

boundaries, increasing privacy at the expense of community. 

been able to do on their own. So we 

said, 'there's a lot of brainpower there.'" 

in 1991, CoA partnered with MDi 

tomorrow to publish a Bar Harbor Times 

special supplement, "MDi tomorrow: 

A look at the future of Mount Desert 

island." included was a buildout analysis 

of the entire island. A "buildout" is a 

step in the land use planning process 

that estimates the amount and location 

of potential development for a given 

area. in the absence of conservation 

easements, zoning ordinances usually 

determine what the land can hold. A 

culmination of years spent digitizing 

maps, the buildout marked a shift in the 

land use planning process on the island. 

It was the first time the public had seen a 

composite map of the island — including 

lot lines, zoning, and soils. the new view 

of the land was startling; more than 

13,800 sprawl-style lots could be created 

under existing regulations. "We put 

together all the parcels," says gordon. 

"Part of the holistic island mapping 

effort included showing buildout by 

density, and that was published to show 

people the potential of our zoning. it 

really kicked people into gear to get 

more serious about the comprehensive 

planning effort." 

over the next few years, through a 

series of grants from the fund for 

improvement of Post Secondary 

education (fiPSe), a program of the 

US Department of education, CAhe 

recruited first Isabel, by then faculty 

member in planning and landscape 

architecture, and later gordon, who had 

completed his graduate work in planning 

at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Influential planner and Design with Nature 

author ian Mcharg, who received an 

honorary MPhil in 1998, visited from 

Penn and gave the interdisciplinary 

lab his stamp of approval. Momentum 

increased. After hearing about a project 

she had done in graduate school, 

students in Isabel's first Land Use 

Planning course asked if they could do a 

buildout of the island's Route 3 corridor. 

"the town was feeling like it was pretty 

well protected with the current zoning," 

says isabel. "But the students were 

curious about what could be developed. 

We not only looked at the maximum 

buildout for the corridor, but also what 

types of buildings you could build." the 

group found that developers could put 

just about anything they wanted along 

the corridor to Acadia national Park. 

the Bar harbor town council "was quite 

appalled at the results of the Route 3 

buildout," according to isabel, "and realized 

there were a lot of gaps and holes 

in their zoning they weren't aware of." 

Says gordon, "Planning is founded 

on good information. We can play out 

scenarios — we can say, 'Well what if this 

happens? What are the consequences?'" 

he stresses that CoA's role has been to 

"provide people who live in and know 

the area with the best information." 

Planning is largely about common sense, 

according to gordon, and mistakes 

are made when people don't have 

the information they need to visualize 

or imagine the effects of a proposed 

change. isabel agrees: "our rule has 

been to provide decision-makers with 

more information so they can make 


informed decisions. We aren't pushing 

them to go one way or the other; we're 

just providing good information." 

Projects like this are an invaluable 

service for communities without the 

resources to invest in full-time planners 

or giS technology. individuals without 

access to expensive design and planning 

services also benefit. The Route 3 

presentation, says isabel, "eventually 

resulted in alternative development 

plans and a series of conservation 

easements" on several properties. 

those plans exchanged sprawl-type 

housing for cluster housing. this 

preserves open land and reduces 

energy and material expenditure by 

placing residential units in neighborly 

clusters, such as CoA's sustainable 

student housing complex, the Kathryn 

W. Davis Student Residence Village. "The 

work CoA did with clustering was very 

influential," says Terry Kelley. When the 

Maine Coast heritage trust and the 

Mount Desert island housing Authority 

teamed up to conserve and selectively 

develop affordable housing on Bar 

harbor's northeast Creek, they looked 

to COA's Davis Village for inspiration. It 

suited the context of the land and the 

residents. 

Another group of land Use Planning 

students found that in the zoning for 

the fertile strip of soil along the Crooked 

Road, the island's "bread basket," 

agriculture was not listed as a permitted 

use. they were investigating the status 

of the fogg farm at the request of its 

owner. "it had been a dairy farm," isabel 

says, "but it had lain fallow for more 

than a year and could not be used as 

a farm anymore — farming was only a 

'grandfathered' permitted use!" 

"We went to the planning board and 

showed them what was going on and 

pointed out the error in their zoning 

ordinance. they asked us to take it to 

the town council, and to look town-wide 

to see if that same situation occurred 

in other places. the students found 

three other zones where there were 

prime agricultural soils," but farming 

was not allowed. "existing farms could 

remain, but if they lay fallow for a year 

they would have to be subdivided, or 

developed." Members of isabel's class 

worked with the town council to change 

the zoning ordinances. the changes, 

which protected the island's farmlands 

from development, passed a town vote. 

Sometimes information is 

uncontroversial; it can easily lead to 

changes. At other times the information 

can be difficult to swallow. In commercial 

development, short-term gains are 

emphasized over the long-term losses 

of ecosystems, viewsheds, and local 

economies. But, says Gordon, "As 

ecological planners, we're committed to 

looking at different time-scales." 

"Does it make sense in the long term?" 

isabel elaborates. "Most development 

is done in the reactionary mode — you 

know, 'that corporation will give me 

how much for my land?' But how does 

a big box retailer change the whole 

dynamic of a town like Bar Harbor? You 

really have to try and figure out what 

the unforeseen consequences might 

be of something before you embark on 

making a big change." 

it is not in the interest of developers 

to consider consequences. When Bar 

harbor's hannaford grocery store 

— owned by a Belgian corporation — 

proposed to move to rural town hill, 

isabel's students were once again ready 

with maps and imagination. in fact, 

when the proposal was made, they were 

already working with town hill on a 

"mini-plan" for its village-like center. 

"they really got that project going," 

says Anne Krieg, former planning and 

development director for the island, 

"because they did a whole bunch of data 

sets — demographics, natural resource 

work, land use analysis. they did a whole 

layer of background data and then 

presented it to the residents in the area. 

We had a couple of workshops where 

they came and were able to present and 

get feedback … it made the project a lot 

more approachable." 

Students created a series of maps 

that detailed the locations of 

wetlands, existing land uses, and 

the densities of prior development in 

town hill. then they conducted a visual 

impact analysis of proposed changes to 

the town's zoning ordinances, showing 

what the town would look like if instead 

of a supermarket, a more village-like 

atmosphere were sought, with setbacks 

moved closer to the roads and building 

heights lowered. 

When the Belgian corporation called a 

public meeting at MDi high School to 

discuss its proposal, says isabel, "People 

were asking them how big the new 

grocery store was going to be, and what 

it would look like. they said, 'Well, we 

have no real site plans yet, so we can't 

The source of this topographic shaded relief model of the Route 3 corridor 

from Salisbury Cove to beyond Bar Harbor is LiDAR, which stands for Light 

Detection and Ranging. The detailed topographic data shown here is 

collected from an aircraft using laser beam measurements of the 

ground surface. over this layer is placed a land cover dataset 

derived from satellite imagery, showing numerous 

classes of land use and land cover types. the red 

area is the town of Bar Harbor, the brownish 

area north of town — designated as 

"developed, open space" — is 

College of the Atlantic, with 

Duck Brook a bit beyond. 

Courtesy of gordon 

longsworth '91. 


once again, students used giS and 

graphic design software to show 

residents what their village might look 

like under revised zoning ordinances. in 

the initial buildout for the Salisbury Cove 

mini-plan, says Anne, "they dropped a 

large building into the area to see what 

that would look like." it dwarfed the rest 

of the community. in a buildout based 

on zoning that protects village character, 

a modest building hugs the street. it 

looks right at home. 

Town Hill Market, Mount Desert, owned by Richard 

Simis '88 and Lilea (Stockwell) Simis '90. 

show you anything.' So we said, 'Well, 

we can show you.'" Andrew louw '10 

unveiled graphics of what the proposed 

grocery store might look like. Based on 

the existing zoning ordinances, it could 

have dominated the viewshed over 

highway 102. 

Residents of town hill "didn't mind 

commercial development," says Anne, 

"but most didn't want anything huge. 

they were building a playground down 

the road!" the corporation was not 

interested in negotiating changes; it was 

only trying to capture traffic headed offisland. 

it decided to keep its store in 

Bar harbor. 

"A lot of the students stayed with the 

project after their course ended," says 

Anne. "they attended meetings and 

made sure to stay informed, which i 

thought was really impressive because 

they didn't have to do that, but they did." 

true human ecologists, they understood 

that land use planning is about 

more than policy. it is, as Anne says, 

"deciding how you want to see your 

community grow." 

Before air conditioning, electricity, 

and automobiles, the growth of 

human communities was governed by 

considerations of distance, temperature, 

and the elements. in Across the Open 

Field, American landscape architect 

Laurie Olin reflects on the beauty of 

southern England's human-made 

environment of hedges, meadows, 

and parks. 

his travels taught him that "things can 

change without getting worse. layers of 

new structure and use can be overlaid 

upon earlier ones to produce a greater 

complexity and richer environment. At 

the same time, some changes can wreck 

the whole fabric and destroy centuries of 

incremental improvements. 

Sorting out which is which 

and how much is critical 

or provides what might be 

seen as a tipping point may 

depend upon scale or the 

degree of finesse or craft with 

which something is done." 

today, "sorting out which are 

which and how much" is the 

challenge facing every human 

community, including Salisbury Cove. 

During the community's recent planning 

process, isabel's students "engaged in 

workshops — visioning sessions — with 

residents," says Anne. "it was a good 

experience for the residents, i think, 

because it was local students working 

with them, not big suits from Portland." 

The Salisbury Cove mini-plan was voted 

down by Bar harbor residents, who 

might not have understood the value 

of protecting the village's character. 

Much work remains. in Salisbury Cove 

it is still illegal to situate a building near 

the street, though that's where the 

community's old general store and post 

office sit. This may be disappointing, but 

it's not the end of the story. According 

to gordon, the planner's job is not to 

change minds, it is to provide maps 

and plans that represent reality and 

possible futures. 

"to me that is the human ecology of 

planning," he says. "ecological planners 

should be able to see all sides of an 

issue: the environmentalist's point of 

view, the developer's point of view. … We 

should try to bring people together, to 

be dynamic and understand why people 

feel the way they do." 

People saw that COA offers a 

very good education; students 

were doing something the towns 

wouldn't have been able to do 

on their own. 

terry Kelley, executive director of MDi housing trust 

there is always hope in understanding, 

which means there is hope yet for the 

future of places like Salisbury Cove. 

gordon's words are a reminder that 

even in an era of grass, glass, and 

gasoline a human plan can be a hope, 

and a human ecological plan the best 

hope we have. 


The Human Ecology of Education: 

CoA and the MDi school system 

Clearly, a school concerned with improving how education happens will generate students interested in innovative educational approaches. 

COA students have been connecting to local youth and the Mount Desert Island school system since the beginning. In 1987, COA began its 

Educational Studies program under the direction of Peter Corcoran. His leadership passed on to Etta Kralovec (then Mooser). For a while Ken 

Hill, our academic dean, ran it, then Judith Cox, and now it has passed on to Bonnie Tai, with Linda Fuller assisting. While not all students in 

the Ed Studies program become teachers, and not all alumni teachers on the island received their certification through COA, you can be sure 

that Ed Studies students are connecting with learners throughout MDI — right from the start of their studies in education. 

The following comments reflect just a few perspectives on the connection between COA and the MDI school system. Bonnie Tai talked 

with Julia De Santis '12; the other educators spoke with Michael Griffith '09. Photos, courtesy of Ben Macko '01, are of Conners Emerson 

Elementary School, above, and Ben in his classroom on the following page. 

Bonnie Tai 

faculty Member in educational and 

human Studies, CoA 

the greatest strength of CoA's 

education program is that our students 

apprentice with teachers in classrooms, 

or with educators in local museums, or 

at Acadia national Park as early as the 

first education class that they take. The 

majority of our students are not planning 

to be state-certified classroom teachers. 

Because of this, classroom discussions 

include very diverse perspectives and 

interests. For example, students in 

intercultural education this past winter 

included those working on global 

health, labor advocacy, and sustainable 

food systems. 

our students have been really creative in 

connecting Maine curriculum standards 

with their own interests. Last term, a 

group of three students — one from the 

Philippines, one who will be a certified 

secondary english language arts teacher, 

and another who will be certified in secondary 

social studies — connected the 

occupy movement and the Civics/government 

learning Results by having kids 

think about ways to communicate with 

the government and about protest as a 

means of communication. In Experiential 

education, students work with on- and 

off-campus community organizations — 

such as Willowind, Beech hill farm, Dorr 

Museum, and the YMCA — to observe 

and offer a range of experiential learning 

opportunities to local school-aged 

kids. Beyond coursework, students take 

on creative senior projects that bridge 

schools and the college, such as natural 

History Explorations, two week-long 

outdoor day camps that lucy Atkins '12 

ran, featured in the Bangor Daily News. 

Building strong relationships with the 

local school district and other educationfocused 

organizations is valuable; it 

offers our students experience with 

practitioners; it's also an opportunity 


"i'm not sure how to qualify a 'coa perspective,' but my methods 

courses definitely shaped my teaching practice and I always want 

students to see the broader view. … I want my students to think 

about things for themselves, to discover the underlying patterns of 

math by asking questions." – Ben Macko '01 

for local educators — including CoA 

alumni — to continue to learn and grow. 

As some local educators have told us, 

CoA education students often ask really 

great questions that cause them to 

reflect on something they may no longer 

notice about their teaching practice. 

We have an annual appreciation event 

for our local school and community 

partners, and it's very well attended, 

i think in part because teachers are 

generally so under-appreciated. We, 

as teachers of education, appreciate 

school teacher's generous contributions 

of time and professional insights. We 

also deeply appreciate our students, 

who are strongly motivated not only to 

integrate mind and body, the personal 

with the academic, and humans with 

their environments, but also to make 

connections between self and other, 

theory and practice, and of course 

school and community. 

Joanne Harriman 

Assistant Superintendent 

Mount Desert island 

Regional School System 

CoA has had a positive impact in 

our schools and our district. it's our 

district's culture to emphasize the 

importance of connecting our young 

people to this amazing place where 

we're geographically situated. to have 

a college nearby that shares the same 

beliefs about stewardship is really 

a gift. Over the years several COA 

faculty and students have participated 

in our MDi Regional School System 

(MDiRSS) Service-learning leadership 

team. these folks have made great 

contributions; they've helped our 

schools stay connected with events and 

ideas that the college is bringing to the 

fore. So there are good partnerships and 

we're cross-fertilizing. 

Right now linda fuller (CoA's associate 

director of educational studies) is a 

member of our teacher certification 

committee, where she gets to hear 

about our teachers' professional 

development plans. And the college has 

shown a continued desire to provide 

meaningful learning opportunities 

for local teachers through summer 

programs and seminars. there are also 

many student teachers from CoA who 

are paired with our teachers over the 

course of any given year. in addition 

to their work in the classroom, they 

attend our common study groups and 

professional development activities; 

they're always ready to participate and 

very enthusiastic. it's great that we're 

here for each other. 

micHael Zboray '95 

Assistant Principal 

Conners emerson School, Bar harbor 

When i went to CoA i didn't have 

education in mind. My interests were 

more around forestry and science, but 

with a sort of wait and see approach. 

… It was really through classes with Etta 

(Mooser) Kralovec, Don Meiklejohn [late 

faculty member in political science], 

and Craig greene [late faculty member 

in botany], that i got excited about 

teaching, started to explore some of 

the education classes, and really got 

interested in social studies, political 

science, and US history. i took every 

single course i could possibly take from 

Don … that just sort of drove my interest 

— and then there were conversations: 

"have you ever thought about teaching?" 

— and it took off from there. At the 

time my focus was on high school 

social studies, because i was really 

driven by the questions of international 

studies and history. As soon as i could 

start working in the schools i did. etta 

presented the idea of working with her 

in a high school philosophy class, and 

that was a great experience. ed Studies 

students had a lot of opportunities to 

go out and see other schools, from 

southern Maine to new York City. that 

drove everybody's interest in pedagogy 

and education. 

that "life-long learner" spirit is 

something i see in the teachers CoA 

has trained. We just conducted the 

final review of a student teacher, and 

even though she was through with 

her student teaching, she wanted to 

continue to work at her school. She 

didn't want her experience to end, and 

that initiative typifies what I think the 

program is about — and reflects the 

culture of the college. there's a strong 

desire to really go out in the world. 

these student teachers go beyond the 


fifteen weeks … [they] want to maintain 

that connection and that experience, 

and they want to learn more. 

You definitely see that in the way 

professional teachers from COA 

interact with their own learning, and 

also their kids' learning. You see it in 

their openness to trying new things, 

being flexible — all those pieces, you 

see that in them, and it relates back 

to their professional capacity. … I think 

part of the Ed Studies program is a little 

more scripted than what your normal 

COA track would be — you're sort of 

shifted into gear, and you have more 

requirements than most COA folks. But 

for someone who's interested in COA, 

to be able to make that shift, it just 

says something about their desire and 

their strong interest in teaching — that 

they're going to have to forego some of 

the COA experience of freedom to go in 

that direction. It says something about 

the individual as a learner and their 

commitment to education. 

Ben Macko '01 

Eighth-Grade Math Teacher 

Conners Emerson School, Bar Harbor 

Before I came to COA I had been doing 

outdoor education in New Jersey, 

working with kids and really just playing 

— telling stories about the life cycles of 

monarchs, exploring the natural world, 

learning and teaching. COA became an 

extension of that. I liked the focus of 

the Ed Studies curriculum, which asked 

me to apply the things I was thinking 

about within a specific area of thought 

and prepared me to be a teacher in a 

relatively short time. Sometimes I envied 

my friends who were able to take more 

varied classes, or what I called "fun" 

classes — art classes, that kind of thing. 

In the end, funnily enough, three of my 

good friends who had been taking all 

those "fun" classes went back to school 

to become teachers. I was already set to 

teach when I graduated from COA. 

I did my student teaching in a fourthgrade 

classroom at Conners Emerson, 

which was great, and before I got my 

job here I was substitute teaching 

throughout the system, which allowed 

me to take on more responsibility. 

Some of the professors' children were 

passing through then, and it was really 

interesting to teach them — to teach 

kids whose parents had taught me — 

and deepen ties in the community. This 

is a small place, and even though I'm 

working in a public system, which means 

there are certain limitations in terms of 

[teaching to] standards, I am pretty free 

to bring a different kind of perspective 

into my classroom. 

I can incorporate current events into 

lessons, encourage students to make 

up their own projects, and help them 

ask critical questions like, 'Why am I 

being taught this? Why do I have to 

learn this?' I'm not sure how to qualify 

a "COA perspective," but my methods 

courses definitely shaped my teaching 

practice and I always want students to 

see the broader view. I can tell them very 

specifically how they might use algebra 

someday, but I want them to think about 

things for themselves, to discover the 

underlying patterns of math by asking 

questions. So that's what we do. It's 

important to be able to look up, to look 

outside, and have that sense of wonder. 

We live in an amazing place, and math is 

all around us. 

Bonnie Burne 

Middle School Science Teacher 

Pemetic Elementary School, SW Harbor 

Recently I worked with [COA lecturer in 

physics] Anna Demeo and Dave Feldman 

[faculty member in physics and math] 

to help connect COA with elementary 

teachers. We talked about what teachers 

need and possibly would want in a 

sustainable energy workshop that would 

focus on teaching elementary students. 

Anna and Dave designed and held a 

great workshop last summer that offered 

a venue for area teachers to collaborate 

with other teachers who are working on 

energy projects and data analysis in their 

classrooms. About a dozen elementary 

teachers from the area spent a week 

with Anna and Dave at COA learning 

about sustainable energy — figuring out 

how it all works through hands-on lab 

activities. I was able to incorporate these 

lessons into my classroom this year and 

make real-world connections between 

math, science, and data analysis. Anna 

has actually hooked up a monitor to 

our computer lab, so we can watch how 

much energy we're using and if there are 

any red flags. The kids are watching the 

data to see what's going on and using 

this information to help make energy 

use decisions in our own school. 

I've worked with several COA students 

in the last few years on service learning 

projects in my classroom. Two of the 

projects we worked on were creating a 

"clean air zone" in front of the school 

That "life-long learner" spirit is something I see in the teachers COA 

has trained. We just conducted the final review of a student teacher, 

and even though she was through with her student teaching, she 

wanted to continue to work at her school … that initiative reflects 

the culture of the college. 

Michael Zboray '95 

and increasing recycling in our school 

and community. This year my students 

launched a community energy challenge 

and created a school energy calendar. 

It's so nice to have students from COA 

join us; it's a great connection to have 

within our community. My students 

look up to the college students; they 

are much closer to their age than I am! 

They're all young people who want to 

be teachers, so they really love the 

kids — which I love. COA students are 

wonderful about communicating with 

me; they really do a fantastic job. It's a 

great opportunity to have my students 

work with members of the community 

to discover and investigate problems, 

and then collaborate and work together 

to help develop solutions to these 

problems. I'm thankful to be able to 

work with them. 


Sweet Pea Farm 

Drennan Woodworking 

Sunflower Garden 

Four Foot Farm 

Acadia Farmers' Market 

Bar Harbor Community Farm 

Peggy Rockefeller Farms 

Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory 

Frenchman Bay Partners 

Little Red Hen Baked Goods 

Town Hill Market 

Willowind Theraputic Riding Center 

Cokeweed 

Tammy Packie Photography 

Kozak Stonework 

Peacock Builders 

Healthy Acadia 

Barxalot, Inc. 

The Protectorate — Cox Land 

Davis Stone and Garden 

Alana Beard Personal Cook 

Heather Murray Jewelry 

Maine Coast Heritage Trust 

Steve Demers Drafting & Design 

Architecture Robert Collins 

Clark Stivers General Construction 

Terry Lee Good Custom Woodwork 

Mount Desert Island High School 

The Jackson Laboratory 

Somes Pond Center 

Wild Gardens of Acadia 

Somes-Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary 

Acadia National Park 

New Yankee Builders 

Beech Hill Farm 

Burning Tree Restaurant 

Seal Cove Auto Museum 

Pamela Parvin Counseling Services 

Mount Desert Elementary School 

Jessie Greenbaum, LMT 

Heart Craft Calligraphy 

Andrew Moulton Yoga 

Asticou Azalea Garden 

Whales & Nails 

Pemetic Elementary School 

Wendell Gilley Museum 

Tremont School 

COA & MDI 

Conservation, education, food, art, and more. 

Yes, COA and COA alumni have enriched life 

on Mount Desert Island, as reflected in this 

map. Highlighted here are some of the visible 

influences COA has had on the community: 

COA partnerships with island schools, 

museums, scientific institutions, and other 

nonprofits (including the public locales right 

on campus), as well as the many alumni artists, 

business owners, farmers, performers, and 

restaurateurs who have made MDI their home. 


Allied Whale 

Ethel H. Blum Gallery 

Center for Applied Human Ecology 

Community Garden 

George B. Dorr Museum 

Island Research Center 

Summer Field Studies 

Thorndike Library 

On COA CAmpus 

Acadia Senior College 

Dive-In Theater with Diver Ed 

Harborside Shakespeare Co. 

Maine Sea Grant 

Reel Pizza Cinerama 

Bar Harbor Whale Watch Company 

College of the Atlantic 

Lompoc Café 

Café This Way 

545 & Co. 

Caivano Architecture 

Bar Harbor Tour Company — Ghost Tours 

Destroy Them My Robots 

Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers 

Bike Revolution Cycle Taxi 

Conners Emerson School 

Courtney Vashro, CMT 

Morning Glory Bakery 

Acacia House 

Abbe Museum 

Yoga @ Cattitude 

Bar Harbor Jazz Festival 

The Natural History Center 

Rupununi 

rosebyrd designs 

Guinness & Porcelli's 

House Wine 

Havana 

Eden 

Cadillac Family Practice 

Noreen Hogan Photography 

Visions 

Gardens By Design 

Peter Jeffery Custom Building 

KEY 

█ Construction & Architecture 

█ Arts & Performance 

█ Farms & Gardens 

█ Attractions & Tourism 

█ Education & Information Technology 

█ Food & Restaurants 

█ Health & Fitness 

█ Science Research & Conservation 

Barbara Sassaman Residential Design 

Bar HarBor 

If we've overlooked someone or something, let us know so we can update our records. 

Data: Donna Gold | Design: Danielle Meier '08 | Execution: Danielle Meier & Katie O'Brien '15 


The above images are 40x magnifications of water samples taken from Frenchman Bay in October, 2011 and photographed by Marina Garland '12. Generally, 

the circular forms are living organisms, the ribbons are plastic filaments. Clockwise from top left: Micro-plastic filament and copepod (a type of zooplankton); 

two different colors of micro-plastic; micro-plastic with phytoplankton (round diatoms); micro-plastic filament with a phytoplankton (round diatom); another 

micro-plastic filament and phytoplankton (round diatom). 


Micro-Plastics: 

Marina Garland '12 studies the doom beneath our waters 

By Donna Gold 

Can a name predict a future for 

a child? Perhaps so. Marina 

garland was barely walking when 

her grandparents invited her to share 

portions of their round-the-world sailing 

voyage. She returned to a family home 

located on an island — and not the 

kind reached by bridge or even ferry. 

She and her family would putt their way 

home in an open aluminum boat. At 

CoA, Marina's love of the water led her 

to seek beneath its surface, discovering 

to her dismay, the tragedy humans have 

suspended within its liquidity. 

it began during during a Sea education 

Association Semester. for her research 

project, Marina began tracking plastic 

pollution, focusing on the massive gyres 

of trash she describes as "hundreds of 

miles of plastic soup mixed in with good 

stuff that you don't want to take out." 

There are five such gyres on the globe: 

two in each of the Atlantic and Pacific 

oceans, and one in the indian ocean. 

As Marina began her research, she 

started to question beyond the swirl of 

visible junk. 

Plastic disintegrates. Colors fade in the 

sun, parts break off. But plastic never 

fully biodegrades. What happens when 

the floating bottles, sneakers, and toys 

break up? Could the ocean also be 

sheltering an equivalent amount of tiny 

plastic bits, what we call micro-plastics? 

there was no information. 

"Most micro-plastics," says Marina, "are 

invisible to the naked eye. You can't 

sail up and take a picture." less than 

five millimeters, they're smaller than 

the height of a barnacle. At sea, Marina 

began sampling the waters, expecting 

to find most of the micro-plastics in 

the gyres. But the farther north she 

traveled, the more she found. She began 

to realize that it isn't just boaters and 

coastal communities that contribute to 

plastic pollution; it's the entire plasticusing 

population of the world. But 

why more micro-plastics around new 

england and maritime Canada? Could it 

connect to our fisheries, since today's 

gear is all plastic? 

When Marina returned to CoA in the fall 

of 2009, she began looking for local data 

on micro-plastics, but found nothing. 

With the help of Chris Petersen, faculty 

member in biology, she obtained funds 

from the Maine Space grant Consortium 

to launch her own study. each time 

the college's vessel, the Indigo, headed 

offshore, she'd send along sampling 

bottles. She also tested frenchman 

Bay. Ninety-eight percent of her 125 

samples had plastic. this is under a 

dissecting scope, with only a 40-power 

magnification. With more sophisticated 

equipment, she suspects she'll find 

that the microplastics she's currently 

documenting are only the tip of 

the iceberg. 

As "oddly photogenic" as these plastics 

might be, they will never disappear, says 

Marina. To filter feeders such as the 

plankton and krill-like organisms that 

form the basis of our food chain, the 

suspended particles mimic food — to 

the creatures' peril. While it's hard to 

test underwater, "in the lab, it's been 

shown that plankton can and do eat 

micro-plastics, and it's often fatal," she 

says, smiling one of the saddest 

possible smiles. 

And the plastic load keeps increasing, 

she adds. it used to be that the ratio 

of macro-plastics to plankton was 

forty to one in certain Pacific locations. 

That estimate has increased five-fold 

in places. these plastics are not only 

dangerous to larger animals, such as 

birds, turtles, and marine mammals, 

they're also the progenitors of microplastics. 

While we can possibly pluck 

sneakers and keyboards from the ocean, 

there is no known way of removing the 

small stuff. What's worse, says Marina, 

is that pollutants like PCBs and DDT 

are attracted to plastic, and so can 

concentrate the toxicity a million-fold. 

Moreover, she adds, "most plastics 

contain harmful additives, such as BPA 

and phthalates that are endocrine 

disruptors, chemicals that mess with 

hormones in humans and other 

animals." these toxin-laden plankton are 

then consumed by larger creatures, and 

still larger ones. You get the picture. 

Marina travels with a wooden pack 

basket; in it she carries, alongside her 

books, a glass jar for cool liquids and 

a stainless steel one for tea. When she 

shops, she places her onions and apples 

directly inside the supermarket cart. no 

plastic bags, cups, or backpacks. "even if 

you recycle or properly dispose of nonrecyclable 

plastics, she says, there's no 

telling where they will actually end up." 

With plastic, she adds, there's only one 

solution: "if you don't want it in 

the environment, don't make it in the 

first place." 

So what does the water look like to 

someone who so distressingly plumbs 

its depths? gazing out at a placid 

Frenchman Bay, Marina smiles again, 

not quite as sadly. "the ocean is still 

beautiful to me," she says. "Mostly 

this work is motivating. it is extremely 

depressing, but it's motivating." 


Conservation Collaborations 

Reintroducing the Peregrine to Acadia 

By Donna Gold 

In this 1984 photo, a peregrine fledgling flies over the park for the first time in decades. It 

would take seven more years for a breeding pair to settle on the island. At right, a fledgling 

perches, having just left its hatching box. At far right, Charlie Todd, a wildlife biologist with the 

Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is in the right foreground, with Jack Barclay 

facing him in a 1986 photo. Says Charlie, "We are inside a garage at Acadia to band the young 

peregrines before transport up to the hack site at Jordan Pond. Most of us were reaching for 

gloves to protect our hands from their needle-sharp talons, but Jack pulled out a pair of ear 

plugs instead. The wailing noises of the young falcons inside a closed space was amazing!" 

Photos courtesy of Acadia National Park. 

Come spring, the alert is posted: 

Acadia national Park's Precipice 

trail is closed. A thousand feet 

high, the cliffs have become a nursery, 

guarding nestlings as celebrated as 

any new baby: peregrine falcons, once 

extinct from Maine — and the entire 

eastern seaboard — are again nesting in 

Acadia. What also might be a celebration 

is that COA faculty, students, and alumni 

are responsible for bringing them back 

to the island. 

Until the early 1950s some four hundred 

peregrine pairs nested east of the 

Mississippi; Acadia included. In 1965 

there were none. The cause? DDTweakened 

eggshells. 

Among those lobbying to ban DDT 

was the late William F. Drury, faculty 

member in biology and passionate 

ornithologist. Though not innately an 

activist, he served on several panels 

of the President's Science Advisory 

Committee under both John F. Kennedy 

and Richard M. nixon and coauthored 

the committee's 1963 report "Use 

of Pesticides." 

"Bill Drury had brilliant, clear vision, and 

amazing tenacity to pursue it," says Scott 

Swann '86, MPhil '93, now a COA lecturer 

in ecology. Bill wanted to see peregrines 

— the swiftest birds of all — back in 

Acadia. Together with students, he 

convinced the park and the Town of Bar 

Harbor to link to the Eastern Peregrine 

Falcon Reintroduction Program. Based 

at Cornell University, the program bred 

a select group of falcons in captivity, 

netting about a hundred chicks each 

year to reintroduce to carefully 

chosen sites. 

The possibility of seeing peregrines 

soar over Acadia so caught Peter Duley 

'84 (now a marine mammal observer 

at NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Service 

Center), that he made the reintroduction 

plan his senior project. Working with 

Bill and park personnel, he scrutinized 

former eyries (or nesting sites), and 

potential new ones. Jordan Cliffs, some 

five hundred feet above Jordan Pond, 

offered both a protected spot for the 

chicks and a great vantage point for the 

observers. The only drawback was the 

long, steep climb for the supply crew. 

Just ask Kyle Jones '82, then a park 

employee. While the Coast Guard 

helicoptered in initial supplies, Kyle was 

charged with carrying frozen feed and 

buckets of ice to the site. For a good six 

weeks during the springs of 1984, 1985, 

and 1986, he would lug up the food 

for the chicks, as well as for the pair of 

COA students who spent those weeks 

observing and daily feeding a pigeonsized 

hunk of chicken to each of some 

seven peregrine hatchlings. The goal was 


to feed, observe, and release the birds 

while remaining absolutely out of sight 

so that eventually one would imprint on 

the area and return to breed. that's all. 

As soon as a pair returned, the program 

would stop. Peregrines are fierce; one 

might eat another's chicks. 

Recalls Scott, "Living up on the cliffs and 

feeding chickens to the peregrine chicks 

was one of the great jobs you could have 

when I was a student." But it required 

intense, if remote, observation, staring 

through peepholes day after day. As the 

guidelines admonished: "Your work will 

involve long hours of observation, which 

at times becomes tedious, but your 

dedication is what will make this project 

a success." 

Though Scott was not an official 

observer, like Kyle he was a frequent 

visitor. Every week or so he'd take a sixpack 

up to his friends — Peter, Stephen 

Chidester ('88), David north ('85), and 

Gwyn Peterdi '85 — fascinated by these 

rare falcons. 

Come June, the birds would start 

flapping, meaning they might soon be 

ready to fly. On the day the barred front 

of their box was to open, more students 

joined the observation force, along with 

a few park officials. 

Recalls Kyle, now chief of resource 

management at the Marsh-Billings- 

Rockefeller National Historical Park in 

Vermont, "We had to be quiet, but we 

were quietly excited. Especially when the 

front of the box came off. Sometimes the 

bird would immediately fly; that was too 

early. Stretch and flap and hop, stretch 

and flap and hop — that's a better 

release." Usually, they'd only fly a short 

distance the first day, returning to their 

ledge to feed. 

in the wild, peregrines might be fed on 

the wing for as long as six weeks after 

fledging; but once they flew for good, 

these birds would have to go it alone. 

the observers remained still, setting 

out food until not one fledgling 

returned to eat for three consecutive 

days. Then they held their collective 

breaths: so much was invested in each 

little creature. 

In 1987 a falcon returned and the 

program was suspended. It took a few 

years longer for a breeding pair to 

establish itself, though. in 1991, one 

did, preferring however, the ocean views 

over the Precipice Trail. For Scott, the 

change is next to miraculous. "I was 

nineteen when I saw my first peregrine, 

and people came from thousands of 

miles around to see it. Now I can take my 

class out and see a peregrine whenever 

I want during breeding season." 


Conservation Collaborations 

Since its founding, COA has worked with Acadia National Park and other island nonprofits to address conservation challenges and 

— together with these partners — help the public understand our collective role in safeguarding the natural world. 

Marine Conservation 

Chris Petersen, faculty member in 

biology, and chair, since 2008, of Bar 

harbor's Marine Resource Committee, 

has spent a lot of time looking into 

the state of frenchman Bay. he has 

overseen clam flats, researched 

anadromous (migratory) fish, and 

mentored students assisting Mount 

Desert island Biological laboratory 

scientist Jane Disney's efforts to restore 

the essential coastal habitat of eelgrass. 

this work convinced Chris that the bay 

could use some focused attention. last 

year, he co-founded frenchman Bay 

Partners, bringing together organizations 

and private enterprises invested in the 

health of the bay. 

Partners include Acadia national Park, 

MDiBl, Maine Coast heritage trust, CoA, 

commercial fishermen, and members of 

the local tourism industry, in addition to 

a host of other concerned individuals. 

Currently, the group is involved in a 

conservation action plan for the bay, 

identifying potential threats, along with 

strategies to deal with those threats. the 

aim, Chris emphasizes, isn't to create 

legislation. "it's to discover what the 

concerns are of individual communities. 

the mission is pretty broad: to ensure 

that frenchman Bay is ecologically, 

economically, and socially resilient." Adds 

Jane Disney, "We're walking that line 

between environmental conservation 

and sustaining local marine livelihoods." 

for instance, students currently 

are searching for the source of the 

contaminant that has forced the closing 

of the Northeast Creek clam flat. They 

began the work in last fall's Marine Policy 

class, team-taught by Chris and Ken 

Cline, faculty member in environmental 

policy and law. having ruled out nearby 

sources, students are now looking into 

possible contaminants farther upstream, 

such as beavers, or even ducks. 

to assist the partnership in its planning, 

Alex Brett '11, working with Chris and 

gordon longsworth '91 (CoA's giS 

lab director), is creating a baseline 

frenchman Bay atlas. the information 

they're compiling ranges from geology 

to species, to overboard discharge, to 

coastline tax maps — building a giS 

map to see, for instance, how red tide 

occurrences overlap with mussel 

and oyster aquaculture, and clam 

harvesting; or how current 

anadromous fish distribution 

compares with historical records. 

the map, says Chris, "allows us to begin 

the conversation; the entire community 

Photograph by Julia De Santis '12. 

will be able to see what's happening, 

and also let us know whether our 

information is correct." 

Moving forward, the partnership is 

looking into creative funding possibilities. 

"the old model is to write grants," says 

Jane. "But might there be more unique 

and creative ways to move forward 

with work that is large-scale, such as 

reseeding clam flats?" 

"Students do the work," notes Chris. 

"We help support them with framing 

questions and techniques, then give 

them equipment and supplies, often 

from my grants and sometimes from 

the Marine Resource Committee; the 

students write up the work, and present 

it." the committee has gotten quite used 

to hearing presentations from student 

researchers, he adds. 


Before the late Bill Drury could propose reintroducing peregrines 

to Acadia national Park, he reviewed a number of potential nesting 

sites. this sketch of the Precipice trail was discovered in one of Bill's 

journals from the early 1980s. Though Jordan Cliffs was ultimately 

chosen for the reintroduction, the peregrines themselves chose the 

Precipice trail. thanks to Scott Swann '86, MPhil '93 and Bic Wheeler 

'09, who discovered the journal in the process of cataloging Bill's 

papers in the Drury Reading Room in Witchcliff. 

forty Years with Acadia national Park 

the peregrine reintroduction may have 

been the most dramatic collaboration 

between College of the Atlantic and 

Acadia national Park, but it is just one 

of many. the very proximity of park 

and college is unusual, says David 

Manski, the park's chief of resource 

management. few colleges have a 

national park literally in their backyards, 

allowing students, faculty, and staff such 

easy access to a natural preserve. And 

few national parks have the resources of 

a college to draw upon, expanding the 

park's capacity for research and analysis. 

CoA, however, is doing just that. Steve 

Ressel and John Anderson, both faculty 

members in biology, are working with 

students to conduct essential analyses 

of local impacts of global trends. John 

and students are studying the impact 

of sea-level rise on nesting seabirds on 

Acadia's islands. Steve's work is a local 

look at the global decline of amphibians, 

nature's "coal mine canaries." Before 

they can even assess the status of 

these animals on MDi, Steve and 

students must first create a census — a 

painstaking process. 

• numerous surveys of park species, 

including the park's first bird list. 

• Bibliography of all park research, 

"a huge collaborative effort that 

resulted in a working research and 

management reference database, 

which glen [Mittelhauser '89] 

continues to update with support 

from the park." 

• Mammal survey of isle au haut, and 

the reassessment of the island's 

river otter population. 

From the very beginning it's been a fluid, 

rewarding friendship, even, adds David, 

"a godsend." Most colleges, he says, "are 

not training natural historians anymore, 

people able to observe and record their 

surroundings — and know what they're 

looking at." 

Students doing park research frequently 

connect with Bruce Connery, Acadia 

national Park's wildlife biologist. he is 

effusive about the careful, extensive 

work of CoA students and faculty, and 

would like to be sure to highlight these 

additional efforts: 

• the Acadia herbarium collection, 

which is housed and maintained 

at CoA (allowing specimens to be 

used as part of classes, resulting in 

The Plants of Acadia National Park, a 

guide written in part by CoA alumni 

(featured in last spring's COA). 


Gardens By Design: 

landscape Architect Dennis Bracale '88 

One of the hallmarks of Dennis Bracale's work is his sense of history, encompassing the culture and philosophy behind 

great garden design. His expansive knowledge has been gathered from years of study, helped along early by receiving 

a Watson Fellowship upon graduating from COA. His project, In Search of the Garden, beliefs about nature, took him 

through eighteen nations, studying the philosophy, history, and artistry behind the world's iconic garden traditions. 

This spread: Dennis Bracale designed this garden to reflect the Tudor heritage of the house and other structures on the estate. Its lush romantic 

plantings welcome visitors to the private home known as Blueberry Haven, bordering on Little Long Pond. Photos courtesy of Dennis Bracale '88. 




Dennis Bracale '88 came to CoA in his late twenties, having spent a decade working in the building trades and a lifetime 

studying plants. Self-directed and largely self-taught, he says CoA, "was the perfect place to take my independent work 

and push it further," moving ahead on the multidisciplinary skills he continues to draw upon as a landscape architect: 

architecture, art, botany, culture, natural history, and philosophy. Dennis is one of Mount Desert island's most sought-after 

landscape architects, refusing many more jobs than he can possibly handle. 

early on, Dennis took to heart the advice the great horticulturalist Charles Sprague Sargent, founder of Boston's Arnold Arboretum, 

gave to renowned landscape gardener Beatrix farrand when she was just starting out: "observe and analyze nature and natural 

Beauty. See and study as many gardens and great landscapes of the world as you are able, and learn from all of the arts, as all art 

is akin." 

In reflecting upon his work, Dennis speaks about creating spaces, not gardens. He talks of a place set apart, a place that — while it 

still has boundaries — is made to appear limitless. "For me," he says, "a garden is nothing more than a dream, it has little physical 

materiality. idealized places are important; they're a refuge, a way we can live in our small places in a big world. it would be 

wonderful if all of us could create such spaces around ourselves." 

left: A view of the waterfall and stream courtyard created for the northeast harbor garden of CoA trustee Philip S.J. Moriarty and his wife Meredith. Above: 

A view of the sunken flower garden completed for the Rose family in Northeast Harbor. The urn in the foreground was created by COA faculty member Ernie 

McMullen. 


Reel Ideals: 

lisa Burton and 

Chris Vincenty's 

Reel Pizza 

By Joanna Weaver '15 

Photos by Julia De Santis '12 

ideals. everybody has something they 

would go to great lengths to uphold 

and promote. for lisa Burton '86 

and Chris Vincenty ('83) of Reel Pizza 

Cinerama, Mount Desert island's only 

year-round cinema, wealth is not terribly 

important; contributing to the happiness 

of others is. At CoA both lisa and 

Chris found a place where, says Chris, 

"success is how well you express your 

ideals," in contrast to the more moneydriven 

society they had known. 

Success — measured not by income 

but by how many people one positively 

influences — is the driving ideal behind 

Reel Pizza. "We started with the idea 

of giving Bar harbor a year-round 

community center," Chris says. they 

wanted to provide a place where people 

could relax after a hard day, a place to 

make friends, a place to take a first date. 

they wanted to encourage an interest 

in film, and they wanted to feed folks 

yummy pizza. 

film was not Chris' original passion. 

learning how mechanical things worked 

and fixing them was. In 1982 he got a 

job at Bar harbor's Criterion theater 

working with 1932-vintage carbon 

arc projectors. After spending hours 

projecting film, his appreciation grew. 

"film can be a window that opens up 

the world," he says. "You can experience 

humanity at all levels." 

When he left the Criterion, Chris still 

wanted to be a projectionist. At the time 

Anna Durand '86 and Ralph McDonnell 

had an idea of merging their bakery 

(they had already launched Morning 

glory) with a cinema. their plans 

changed, but lisa and Chris went ahead. 

Reel Pizza opened for the first time in 

1995 with sixty chairs at tables, a 1930s 

projector, and pizza, playing Priscilla 

Queen of the Desert. the pizza was an 

easy decision. they wanted an evening at 

their theater to be like sitting in a living 

room, so a comfort food was essential. 

Conveniently, both lisa and Chris had 

previously worked at pizzerias. 

the two scraped together what they 

had, searched classified ads, bought 

pizza equipment from a parlor going 

out of business, scoured Uncle Henry's 

— Maine's twentieth-century Craigslist 

predecessor — for couches, recliners, 

and a bingo board, and became 

inventive: the illuminated strips along the 

auditorium floors are altered Christmas 

lights; the bingo board summons viewers 

for their pizza orders. 

today, after purchasing tickets at the 

vintage-style ticket booth — often from 

Chris himself — you walk into a cozy 

lobby featuring local art and frequently a 

host of COA students, faculty, staff, and 

alumni who are either waiting to see the 

movie or working the pizza, popcorn, 

and beer counter. the pizzas, made on 

the premises, have names like zorba 

the greek, featuring olives and feta, 

and Some like it hot, with hot peppers 

and chilies. then you might settle on a 

couch or behind a counter in the cozy 

red and purple auditorium, chatting with 

neighbors until the show begins and 

the bingo board blinks with your pizza's 

number. 

the commitment, sincerity, and hard 

work have paid off. Chris and Lisa can 

define their own success: seeing their 

customers made happy by a diverse 

range of films, food, and community 

while they enjoy some of the best flicks 

available. And when needed, they can 

offer their screen to fundraisers for 

the Bar harbor food Pantry, Project 

graduation, or a struggling friend. this 

is their work — it pays the bills; more 

importantly, it expresses their ideals. 


District 35 

Representative: 

elspeth (elsie) 

flemings '07 

interview and photo by 


JDS: What does it take to represent a 

community? 

ef: fundamentally what it takes to 

represent a community well is listening 

very well, having an open mind about 

issues, working very hard to hear 

different perspectives and to understand 

the many layers of perspectives in a 

community. And then, you take that as 

best you can and translate it into action. 

JDS: How do you cope with disappointing 

days as a representative? 

ef: things happen that are out of my 

control, there are times that i feel 

disappointed or sorrowful. But i try not 

to allow this to overcome me. it is not 

always easy, but it's a practice. i have a 

lot of driving time, and i run, try to rest, 

and meditate. 

Julia De Santis: How did you get involved 

in politics? 

elsie flemings: early on during my 

time at CoA, i volunteered at the Bar 

harbor food Pantry and got involved 

in local candidate races. i became 

increasingly interested in policy work. i 

really like thinking of things holistically: 

how do you promote strong economies, 

strong environments, and strong 

communities? that question underlies 

my passion and drive. 

JDS: What does your job entail? 

ef: for the past four years i've been 

serving as the state representative for 

four communities: the Cranberry isles, 

Bar harbor, Southwest harbor, and 

part of Mount Desert. And for the past 

three years i've also been working at 

healthy Acadia, a community health 

organization serving hancock County. 

My work with the legislature is parttime, 

but with a full-time commitment. 

it's an incredible experience. i am so 

grateful for the opportunity to serve the 

communities and work with constituents 

on everything from family issues to really 

broad policy work with organizations 

statewide. Both of my jobs have enabled 

me to be deeply rooted and connected 

to the community. 

JDS: Can you explain constituent work? 

ef: Ah — for example, if someone calls 

and says, "i'm trying to get a license 

for this kind of business, can you help 

connect me to the right person?" or, 

"I'm trying to figure out whether or not I 

qualify for…" i answer questions and help 

constituents get the support they need. 

But in Augusta, a lot of my time is spent 

on policy. We all serve on committees 

that delve into specific initiatives and 

i work on the taxation Committee. i 

engage with a broad variety of initiatives: 

forestry, fishing, affordable housing, 

business development. 

JDS: What could politics most use now? 

ef: the more we can do to get big 

money out of politics, the better. it's one 

of the most crucial paths to a system 

where more people participate and 

community members' voices are heard. 

JDS: Any advice to a graduating senior? 

ef: Do what you love to do, what you're 

passionate about, and what brings you 

joy. this is really critical, even to make 

change happen at a global level. We 

need joy, positive energy, and passion, 

as well as the petitions and negotiations 

and policy work. Be responsive to where 

you are at any moment and support 

people who are doing things at all levels: 

everything is needed. take the time for 

self-care: try to find quiet moments of 

contemplation and reflection. It's easy to 

get upset and discouraged, but it doesn't 

help to be frustrated. it ends up limiting 

my ability to work and be effective. 

So the more we can cultivate positive 

energy, the more positive difference we 

will make in the world. 


COA's Underwater Superhero: Diver ed 

By Michael Griffith '09 

At sixteen, ed Monat '88 moved 

into his car. it was the early 

eighties and lobster fishing, 

the "family business," was suffering. 

ed's future seemed bleak. then an 

enterprising guidance counselor 

suggested college. "She hunted down a 

couple of schools for me. CoA was one 

of them," he says. "i got my acceptance 

letter and stashed it in the glove box." 

But the summer after graduation proved 

particularly rough, so ed left Manomet, 

Massachusetts, and drove up to Mount 

Desert island. he says, laughing, "they 

weren't expecting me at all!" ed dug 

out his letter, handed it over to former 

admissions director Ted Koffman, and 

became a student. 

his transition wasn't easy. "i grew up in 

a different world," says Ed. He was in the 

first iteration of the Human Ecology Core 

Course, a trial-and-error experience 

for all, writing was difficult, and he had 

to work full time. ed leaned heavily on 

drink, raced his car — he did what he 

had always done. By his third term he 

was asked to show cause. that's when 

he grew close to former faculty member 

in biology Butch Rommel. "After i met 

Butch that third term at CoA, i would 

meet him at four-thirty in the morning 

every day at Jordan's Restaurant. We 

would hash over the whole day — what 

both of us were up to. he made me think 

about everything." And everything led 

back to the sea. 

Soon ed was doing independent 

studies on research and technical 

diving, quantitative hydrodynamics, 

and the computational modeling of 

invertebrates. he began cold water 

diving with eric Roos '87 and Scott 

Swann '86, MPhil '93, learning about 

frenchman Bay and the island he would 

come to call home. ed was "wicked 

excited" about learning, and kept on 

learning — and doing — until he could 

get others learning and doing. he 

outfitted the Turrets basement with a 

marine lab. for an outreach education 

class he created a traveling touch tank, 

which he hauled all over the state. 

Though nearly kicked out in his first year, 

"at the end of my last year," he says, "i 

was chosen as one of two students to 

give presentations to trustees." 

After graduation, ed spent a year in 

florida constructing the Marsh Biome for 

the Smithsonian institute's Biosphere 

2 project. Back in Maine, he eventually 

became Bar harbor's harbormaster. 

Meanwhile, schools and libraries were 

clamoring for his traveling touch tank. 

"But i wanted people to see more life … 

a sea cucumber in a touch tank is just 

a big round slimy blob, but underwater 

they've got their feeding fronds out 

eating, and you can watch their suction 

cups holding on." Yearning to provide 

a more hands-on experience, he 

dreamed up Diver ed's Dive-in theater, 

an interactive cruise that turns everyone 

on deck into a vicarious diver: live feeds 

send video and sound up to an on-board 

screen of ed's underwater adventures. 

When he surfaces, ed is accompanied 

by sea critters — and his new ship, the 

Starfish Enterprise, becomes a gigantic 

touch tank. 

"it's really just an evolution of one of 

the first classes I took at COA," he says. 

it certainly didn't come all at once. the 

character of Diver ed is complemented 

by Captain evil, ed's wife edna Martin; 

together they commandeer a set of 

allusions to popular culture that are 

mostly irrelevant to them. Comic book 

references are just one more way to 

get others "wicked excited" about the 

marine world. 

of course, nothing could make ed 

more excited than he is today. After 

years of working for others — doing 

seal strandings from Canada to 

Massachusetts, running charters — 

he created a global club, the "league 

of Underwater Superheroes," that 

celebrates his passions for diving and 

giving back. ed now takes people on 

dive adventures all over the world. Back 

at home, the league stages community 

events and conducts a yearly harbor 

cleanup. 

he may be used to living in cars and 

boats, but the island is ed's home now 

— the island and its sea. 


AlUMni 

Notes 

1986 

Teny Bannick is now living in Athens, 

ohio, and has a new job as live-in manager 

at heritage Commons, a 44-unit public 

housing complex. 

1993 

expanding on her work for tolerance, 

Heather Martin has begun a master's degree 

in mediation and applied conflict resolution 

at Champlain College. A grassroots 

organizer for the AClU of Maine, marriage 

equality, and several other progressive issues, 

she continues to live in Surry, Maine, 

where she walks the dog, feeds the horse, 

watches the foxes, and reads loads of 

good books with eilon, 11, and tobiah, 8, 

both of whom wish she would buy a tV 

already. 

Jen Mazer had planned to attend the Boston 

CoA gathering last December, but was 

engrossed in the local occupy movement. 

it seemed that the police were ready to 

evict the occupiers that evening, so she 

spent the night with thousands of other 

supporters on Atlantic Avenue. Jen can be 

found at mazer_flymeaway@yahoo.com. 

1996 

on March 16, 2012, Mary Harney, CoA 

painter, became a United States citizen. 

1997 

Melissa Hirsch Skinner moved to Raleigh 

from Boston in December. now also licensed 

in north Carolina as a professional 

counselor, she joined a group psychotherapy 

practice in north Raleigh, changeforlivingcounseling.org. 

She writes that life is 

good and busy with three children, ages 7, 

4, and eight months. 

Margaret Hoffman joined the staff of 

the Maine Office of Tourism in December. 

She is responsible for consumer travel 

and trade shows, motorcoach and group 

travel (including meetings and destination 

weddings), and the office's getaways 

and packaging programs. Margaret is also 

responsible for industry outreach, so she 

is often on the road visiting chambers of 

commerce and trade associations to deliver 

educational sessions. her new work 

email is Margaret.hoffman@maine.gov 

and she's happy to hear from anyone 

working in Maine's tourism industry. 

1998 

Kate (Francis) Gatski is launching a new 

project; the digital guide All Craft: A Recipe 

for Making it Pay. She calls this a simple, 

methodical way to make creative passions 

profitable enough to pay one's bills and 

benefits, and offer future business opportunities, 

travel, and college funds for 

children. Kate has steered a full-time craft 

business for nearly ten years and was 

raised by a full-time crafter of thirty years. 

Visit kategatski.com for the guide, or gatskimetal.com 

for the metal sculptures and 

furniture she and her husband create. 

2000 

Jude Lamb is traveling with a first person 

dramatic presentation of her great-greatgreat-great 

grandmother, eunice lakeman 

hoar. She tells of the family's journey, 

in 1817, walking over the snow-covered 

hills of western Maine with nine young 

children to become the first white settlers 

on what is now Rangeley lake. 

in anticipation of the release of her young 

adult novel Harbinger, set in a turrets-like 

building, Sara Wilson Etienne enlisted the 

talents of twenty-five artists to create Harbinger-inspired 

artwork. A new piece was 

revealed each week on her website, culminating 

in a gallery show at the hive gallery 

in los Angeles. the show included work by 

Kelice Penney and David Fass '01. Currently, 

Sara is happily signing books, speaking 

at libraries and schools, and working 

on her next novel. Check out the artwork: 

holbrookacademy.com/sketchbook. 

2001 

Becca Melius was recently promoted to 

senior curator of collections at the Museum 

of Science, Boston. She writes, "i'm 

hosting Meg Trau '12 as an intern for the 

summer. it's a full-circle moment, because 

my first museum job after graduation was 

interning at the Peabody essex Museum 

under Janey Winchell '82." 

Justin Mortensen married laura Cacho 

on October 9 in Waitsfield, Vermont. Six 

days later, he left for two months of work 

in Uganda. now in a new position with 

Save the Children Australia, he and laura 

have moved to Melbourne for at least two 

years. As program manager for Southeast 

Asia, Justin will have primary responsibility 

for grants implemented in Cambodia, 

Vietnam, laos, indonesia, Philippines, 

and Myanmar. their new adventures can 

be followed on smugglingbudgies.com. 

"Should be a wild ride!" writes Justin. 

While working for the Arkansas Field Office 

of the nature Conservancy as a giS specialist, 

Rachel Worthen is also keeping up 

with her artistic side with the Blue-eyed 

Knocker Photo Club. She recently participated 

in the largest photography show 

ever in central Arkansas. She writes, "i 

continue to love elasmobranch — sharks, 

rays, and skates — but conservation can 

be found anywhere — even on land!" 

2002 

Anselm Bradford now has permanent 

residency in new zealand. he recently 

co-authored his first book with Friends 

of eD, now Apress: The HTML5 Mastery: 

Semantics, Standards, and Styling. in addition 

to teaching, Anselm serves as a technical 

editor for books by o'Reilly Press and 

PeachpitPress and recently contributed 

infographics to a book by lonely Planet, 

How to Land a Jumbo Jet. 


2003 

Andy and Julia Davis McLeod are having 

a wonderful time cuddling with Sophie, 

born March 21, 2012. 

Cait Unites moved to Kigali, Rwanda, last 

fall as the health services technical advisor 

for the Rwanda office of Population 

Services international. She says, "i'm enjoying 

getting settled and learning more 

about this country that will be my home 

for the next three years. it is nice to have 

Dave Feldman [faculty member in physics 

and math] as a neighbor while he is 

here on his fulbright. Visitors are always 

welcome; i have many empty bedrooms 

(and a full bar and dance floor) in my 

enormous Rwandan villa." 

2004 

Dustin Eirdosh is finishing his graduate 

thesis at University of Kassel as part 

of the Trans-Atlantic Partnership with 

CoA. in April, he presented his work with 

Genio Bertin '97 and Sarah Faull '98 

from Mandala farm at the CoA sustainable 

foods conference, food Connections, 

as part of the panel discussion, 

"Can We have Sustainable Meat?" Dustin 

will be moving to Madagascar to pursue 

field-based journalism on various agricultural 

development issues. Stories will be 

on his blog, MythicMeats.com. 

2005 

Aaron Lewis was back in the US touring 

with thomas Dolby this spring. for 

updates on performances check out the 

news tab at aaronjonahlewis.com. 

2007 

Laura Briscoe spent five weeks in Tierra 

del fuego, Chile, on a national Science 

foundation-funded grant in conjunction 

with her work at Chicago's field Museum, 

writing a flora of the liverworts of southern 

South America. it is a region of amaz- 

Inspired by Fish: 

Artificial Life with 

Robots 

from Darwin's Devices: 

What Evolving Robots Can Teach 

us About the Evolution of Life and 

the Future of Technology. Basic 

Books, April, 2012. 

By John long '86 

i know this is going to sound 

crazy, but hear me out — i use 

robots to study biology. What's 

driven me to the edge, to the 

boundary between biology and 

artificial intelligence, is curiosity. 

i want to understand how 

the first fish-like vertebrates 

evolved 500 million years ago. 

if you are interested in the 

evolution of anything, you've 

got a big problem. Dead fossils 

tell no tales about behavior and ecology. Without those in-the-flesh interactions, 

we simply don't know how natural selection might've acted. the best that we can 

do, then, is to recreate and model the animals as biorobots. 

Biorobots are specially designed to mimic animals, from the sensory and 

locomotor systems to the nervous system that helps orchestrate behavior. Most 

importantly, we build biorobots to be physically embodied and fully autonomous: 

they operate on their own in the world without a human pulling the strings via 

remote control. 

Once we have autonomous biorobots, we use them to populate a simplified 

world where they must compete to survive and reproduce. each biorobot has an 

artificial genome that codes the genes that allow it to pass on its distinctive traits 

to its children. Under selection for improved feeding and escaping behavior, for 

example, our population of biorobotic fish, designed to mimic early vertebrates, 

changed its skeleton and sensory system from one generation to the next. We 

evolve robots to study the evolution of animals. 

evolving robots recreate the game of life. this is what Darwin's Devices is all 

about: how we conceive, design, engineer, and then use biorobots to model 

evolutionary processes. We collaborate: biologists, engineers, computer scientists, 

and mathematicians. Together, we are developing the new field of evolutionary 

biorobotics. 

evolutionary biorobotics has interesting things to say about how humans design 

and innovate. Since evolution is a hands-off process, we don't know what we'll get 

when we sit back and watch robots play the game of life. even simple biorobots 

produce complex behaviors that surprise us. As a result, the direction that 

evolution takes is often unpredictable. We can put evolution to work to create 

surprising designs. 


ing bryophyte diversity, she writes; her 

team worked on small islands where collections 

have never before been made. 

Isaac Fer writes, "I finished and published 

a book on my grandfather and mother's 

life and work at the National Geographic." 

the book, Traveling the World for National 

Geographic, contains stories and photos 

from around the globe, tying together 

sixty years of their lives, "including the 

four decades during which my grandfather, 

Thomas J. Abercrombie, was a staff 

photographer and journalist for the Geographic. 

his travels took him to the South 

Pole, Venezuelan jungles, and the deserts 

of the Middle east, where he was the 

first Western journalist to complete the 

pilgrimage to Mecca. Work on the book 

began shortly after his death in 2006 

and remained a part-time project for my 

family until 2009, when it became a fulltime 

endeavor." 

Awarded a five-year fellowship to pursue 

his PhD in plant ecology at University 

of texas at Austin, Nate Pope will 

focus on the conservation of native 

pollinators in industrial agriculture to 

increase biological diversity within their 

cropping systems. 

2008 

Wyatt Mathews, MPhil, is teaching eleventh 

graders in the Bronx, new York, 

where, he says, "Three of my brightest 

students were too busy with science 

classes during the day to take a traditional 

phys-ed credit." And so, the Bronx 

guild hS longboarding team was born. 

It's a distance team, skateboarding five 

to ten miles at a stretch. You can follow 

them at bronxconx.tumblr.com. 

2009 

Michael Griffith shares, "After teaching 

for two years at the UWC in india, and 

spending a lovely 'gap year' back in the 

COA community, I'm headed to King's 

College london to complete my graduate 

studies in English and philosophy." 

While visiting friends in new York City, 

Sarah Neilson met up with Becky 

Wartell '10 at zuccotti Park on november 

14, hours before the park was raided. 

Becky had been occupying Wall Street 

since the very first day, traveling back to 

Maine every week to work for two days 

and then returning to the park. 

Elena Piekut writes, "I managed to 

beat out a pool of eighty to become the 

new assistant city planner for the City 

of ellsworth. i love it. Planning really is 

interdisciplinary, i learn all the time, and 

i help make the rules about development 

in ellsworth — perfect! 

2011 

Kaija Klauder believes she may be the 

first alumna to give a sworn definition of 

human ecology. While fulfilling her call 

to jury duty, she was asked, under oath, 

"What is human ecology?" Kaija wonders 

if this has happened to others, as it could 

be a great collection of stories! Currently 

living in Alaska, she is working on an organic 

vegetable farm. 

Luka Negoita has been awarded a 

five-year National Science Foundation 

graduate Research fellowship to 

pursue his PhD in plant ecology at 

Syracuse University. 

AlUMni resources 

Wanted: Class Notes for COA 

Do you have notes for the next issue of 

CoA? Send them to Dianne Clendaniel, 

alumni relations and development 

coordinator, at dclendaniel@coa.edu. 

Letters, Ideas, and Writers 

We would love to hear what you have 

to say about COA, its recent makeover, 

and the stories we bring to you twice a 

year. Do you have ideas for the upcoming 

issues? Would like to be considered as a 

writer for COA? Please send your letters 

to the editor, poems, short stories, art 

work, and article ideas to Donna gold at 

dgold@coa.edu. 

Stay Connected 

Update your contact information three 

different ways: 

Phone: 207-801-5624 

Email: alumni@coa.edu 

Website: www.coa.edu/alumni 

COA Alumni Career Services 

• Career & Resumé guidance 

• graduate School information 

• networking opportunities 

• Searchable employment Databases 

Contact Jill Barlow-Kelley, director of 

internships and career services, 

jbk@coa.edu or 207-801-5633. 

Black Fly Society 

The Black Fly Society is the eco-friendly 

way to give to CoA. 

to join this monthly giving society, go to 

www.coa.edu/support and click "Give A 

Gift Online" on the left-hand side. Then 

under the "Gift Frequency" drop-down 

menu, choose "Monthly," submit your 

gift, and you're done! Have questions? 

Call 207-801-5622. 


CoMMunity 

N o t e s 

At the Community food Security Coalition's 

national conference in oakland last 

november, Molly Anderson, Partridge 

Chair in food and Sustainable Agriculture 

Systems, was honored as an outgoing 

board member. She also participated 

in the northeast Sustainable Agriculture 

Working group's annual conference, a 

panel for the national Conference on 

Science and the environment's meeting 

in Washington, DC, the national Climate 

Assessment's advisory meeting on rural 

issues, and a roundtable and panel in 

london on the international Assessment 

of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and 

technology for Development. Additionally, 

Molly was part of a group awarded a 

planning grant from the John Merck fund 

for a food Knowledge ecosystem and 

organized the conference "food Connections: 

Reconnecting hands, Mouth & 

Mind through food Systems education" 

at CoA in April. 

the current project of Nancy Andrews, 

faculty member in film, in collaboration 

with Artists in Context, is Delirious, exploring 

the medical critical care experience 

and aftermath from her perspective as an 

intensive care unit (iCu) survivor. Watch a 

video of nancy discussing her new work: 

artistsincontext.org, or read about the 

project at nancyandrews.net. She has 

been working with Robin Owings '13 on 

this project, and has received research 

and development support from CoA's 

Rothschild fund. Currently some of her 

writings and drawings are being used by 

medical clinicians and researchers from 

Vanderbilt university Medical Center and 

the university of nebraska in presentations 

about iCu delirium. 

nancy has 

had showings of 

her work at the 

Robert flaherty 

film Seminars in 

new york City, 

and at the film 

on the Rocks in 

Phuket, thailand 

in March; and 

at the Squeaky 

Wheel, Buffalo Media Resources in April 

(with a Skype question and answer period 

after). In May, a showing of her films at 

the Brattle theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 

was accompanied by a discussion 

with nancy, Dr. Micheal Belkin, chief 

of vascular surgery at Brigham and Women's 

hospital, and Dr. Samata Sharma, 

clinical fellow in psychiatry at Beth israel 

Deaconess Medical Center. 

in february, Rich Borden, Rachel Carson 

Chair in human ecology, gave an invited 

talk at the new forest institute in Brooks, 

Maine, titled "Human Ecology: Reflections 

on Meaningful livelihood and a livable 

future". he is co-author of the article 

"human Behavior and Sustainability," in 

the April issue of Frontiers in Ecology and 

the Environment, published by the ecological 

Society of America. 

A peer-reviewed article, "the governance 

of things: Documenting limbo in 

the greek Asylum Procedure," by Heath 

Cabot, faculty member in anthropology, 

is in the current issue of Political and Legal 

Anthropology Review (PolAR) 35:1 11-29. 

"Approaching haystack" an essay by Bill 

Carpenter, faculty member in literature 

and creative writing, was published as 

#26 in the haystack Mountain School of 

Crafts monograph series. 

the irish band Maclir, in which Gray Cox, 

faculty member in political philosophy, 

sings and plays bones and guitar, performed 

at benefits at the Grand Auditorium 

in ellsworth and at the Bar harbor 

Baptist Church, raising funds for heating 

fuel. gray joins the band when it plays 

Wednesday nights at finn's in ellsworth 

— except this term, when he's in Vichy, 

france with Karen Waldron, faculty 

member in literature, offering a program 

for thirteen students in french literature, 

philosophy, and culture, along with an 

immersion language program at 

CAVilAM university. 

Dave Feldman, faculty member in physics 

and math, is a 

visiting professor of 

applied physics as a 

fulbright fellow at 

the Kigali institute of 

Science and technology 

in Rwanda. 

While at KiSt Dave 

is teaching five classes over two semesters 

and supervising three 

senior theses. 

this winter Jay Friedlander, the Sharpe- 

Mcnally Chair of green and Socially Responsible 

Business, presented at several 

conferences, including the annual 

meeting of the American Association of 

Colleges and universities, the Ashokau 

exchange, Babson College Social innovation 

forum, and the Maine farmer's Market 

Convention, speaking about sustainable 

business, social entrepreneurship, 

and marketing innovations. in addition, 

Jay and Anna Demeo, lecturer in physics, 

were accepted to the 2012 Electricite 

de France Sustainable Design Challenge 

for CoA's work in sustainable energy 

and business. Jay, Kate Macko, sustain- 


able business program administrator, 

and Anna will be working with a team of 

students to prepare CoA's presentation. 

in March, a record eleven students and 

seven ventures were selected for the 

hatchery, an incubator for projects in the 

arts, business, furniture making, alternative 

energy, and policy. 

NOXL Rally & World Water Forum 

having visited the lester B. Pearson United 

World College of the Pacific in Victoria, 

BC, where nearly a quarter of CoA's international 

students have studied, Kylee 

Gies, Coordinator of international Student 

Services, writes, "i found the institution, 

along with its vibrant staff, faculty, 

and students, to be friendly, innovative, 

community-driven, eclectically cross-cultural, 

and educationally progressive. i felt 

right at home on their campus nestled 

between the Pacific temperate rainforest 

and water's edge." 

Ken Hill, academic dean, is the executive 

director of the Society for human 

Ecology. Barbara Carter, assistant to the 

faculty, is secretary. Also on the board is 

Mihnea Tanasescu '04, studying at the 

free University of Brussels, and Erik 

Bond, MPhil '12. Past president Rich 

Borden continues to remain active. 

Ken Cline, the David Rockefeller family Chair in ecosystem Management and 

Protection, joined twenty-five students at the rally to prevent the extension of the 

Keystone Xl pipeline in Washington, DC, last november. Meeting them were CoA 

alumni Lauren Nutter '10, Juan Soriano '10, Nat Keller '04, Ivy Huo '05, and 

John Deans '07. 

Todd Little-Siebold took ten students 

to england to study the history of apples, 

orchards, and cider. Using funds from 

the trans-Atlantic Partnership, the group 

traveled around england for just over two 

weeks, visiting orchards, cidermakers, and 

other sites. Also joining them were Maine 

apple expert John Bunker, Beech hill 

farm manager Alisha Strater, and Rhode 

island cidermaker Cassie tharinger. 

Nishanta Rajakaruna '94, faculty member 

in botany, received a $16,100 grant 

from the national Park Service to continue 

work on cataloging CoA's herbarium 

specimens and offering access to others 

for research and education, and a 

$12,477 grant from the national Science 

foundation as principal investigator on 

the macrofungi collection consortium: 

unlocking a biodiversity resource for 

in March, Ken attended the World Water forum in 

Marseilles, france, along with (directly above, left to right) 

Lisa Bjerke '13, Rachel Briggs '13, Barbara Beblowski 

'14, and in front Janoah Bailin '14 and Robin Owings '13. 

Ken and students posted reports from the forum at www. 

earthinbrackets.org. Keep following the site for reflections 

on the United nations Conference for Sustainable 

Development, or Rio+20, this June. 


understanding biotic interactions, nutrient 

cycling, and human affairs. For part of 

this winter, nishi held two visiting scientist 

positions in South Africa: at the School of 

Environmental Sciences and Development, 

North-West University, Potchesftroom 

Campus, and in the Materials Research 

Department, iThemba Laboratory 

for Accelerator Based Sciences, National 

Research Foundation. 

Nishi also coauthored the following 

recent papers: with alumna Sarah 

Neilson '09, he wrote "Roles of rhizospheric 

processes and plant physiology 

in phytoremediation of contaminated 

sites using oilseed Brassicas," in The Plant 

Family Brassicaceae: Contribution Towards 

Phytoremediation, edited by N.A. Anjum, 

I. Ahmad, M.E. Pereira, A.C. Duarte, S. 

Umar, and N. A. Khan. 2011. This is part 

of the Environmental Pollution Book Series 

published by Springer in Dordrecht, 

The Netherlands. With alumnus Tanner 

Harris '06, former faculty member Fred 

Olday, as well as S. Clayden and A. Dibble, 

he wrote, "Lichens of Callahan Mine, 

a copper and zinc-enriched Superfund 

site in Brooksville, Maine, USA," Rhodora 

113: 1-31, 2011. With B.L. Anacker, D.D. 

Ackerly, S.P. Harrison, J.E. Keeley, and 

M.C. Vasey, Nishi wrote "Ecological strategies 

in California chaparral: Interacting effects 

of soils, climate, and fire on specific 

leaf area," in Plant Ecology and Diversity. 

2011. With S.P. Harrison and S.C. Goncalves, 

editors, he is co-editing "Serpentine 

Ecosystems: A Global Perspective. 

Proceedings of the Seventh International 

Conference on Serpentine Ecology," a 

special issue of the journal Plant Ecology 

and Diversity. 2012. 

In January, Davis Taylor, faculty member 

in economics, was the keynote speaker 

at the conference By Land and By Sea: 

Leveraging the Co-op Model for Business 

Success at the Maine Organic Farmers 

and gardeners Association in Unity, 

Maine. The conference brought together 

farmers, fishers, cooperative businesses, 

organizations that help foster cooperatives, 

and those interested in starting 

producer or consumer cooperatives. 

Sean Todd, Steven K. Katona Chair in Marine 

Sciences, recently completed a sabbatical 

collecting data for the Antarctic 

Community Connections 

COA staff and faculty are thoroughly connected to the MDI community. Here's a list of 

just some of the local involvement we've discovered. Because we know that some staff 

and faculty are too modest — or busy — to add to the list, this is just a sampling: 

• Abbe Museum exhibition design 

• Athletic coach 

• Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce Sustainable Tourism committee member 

• Bar Harbor Food Pantry board 

• Bar Harbor Marine Resource Committee chair 

• Book Club facilitator 

• Business of Reading participant 

• Down East Educational Partnership for Hancock County 

• Food Bank board member 

• Frenchman Bay Conservancy board 

• Frenchman Bay Partners steering committee 

• island Connections driver 

• healthy Acadia Advisory Committee 

• Maine Businesses for Sustainability board 

• Maine Science Fair judge 

• MDI Historical Society assistance 

• MDI Regional School System Certification Committee 

• MDI Regional School System Crisis Team 

• MDI Regional School System presentations 

• MDI Regional School System Service Learning Leadership Team 

• MDI Toastmasters International (VP of Education) 

• MDI YMCA board 

• Senior Exhibition panel for MDI High School's senior degree requirement 

• Somes-Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary board 

• Women's Health Center Advisory Committee 

Humpback Whale Catalog in the Southern 

Ocean and Antarctic Peninsula. Together 

with students, alumni, and fellow 

Allied Whale researchers, Sean attended 

the 19th Biennial Conference on the Biology 

of Marine Mammals. COA and Allied 

Whale had nine accepted presentations, 

of which Sean co-authored five. Six of 

the presentations had COA student 

authors. Jacqueline Bort, MPhil '11, 

Jessica McCordic '12, Kathryn Scurci 

'11, and Chris Spagnoli '12 were each 

senior authors. 

More than thirty people attended 

the Allied Whale reunion organized at the 

event. Sean also co-authored a recently 

accepted paper, "Hierarchical and rhythmic 

organization in the songs of humpback 

whales (Megaptera novaeangliae)" in 

the journal Bioacoustics, with colleagues 

Stephen Handel and Annie Zoidis. 

Before heading to France, Karen 

Waldron presented a paper on medical 

authority in Sarah Orne 

Jewett's fiction at the 2012 

northeast Modern language 

Association meetings 

in Rochester, New 

York. She also chaired a 

successful panel on The 

Questions of Voice in Nineteenth-Century 

American Women's Literature. 


In MeMorIaM 

MArion fuller Brown 

CoA Board Member 

May 14, 1917–June 3, 2011 

Marion fuller Brown was a CoA trustee 

from 1972 to 1973. As a Maine legislator 

from 1966 to 1972, she sponsored 

the legislation banning billboards from 

Maine roads. writes her son, henry 

w. fuller, "her solid obituary details 

her ... focused personal involvement 

in local, state, and federal political 

roles that embrace that of a dedicated 

conservationist, a stalwart middle-of-theroad 

republican, and a giver of her time 

and money to causes she believed in. 

She died as she had ordained ... in her 

bed looking out over the fields sprinkled 

with a full fresh crop of daisies down to 

the York river." 

JAMeS C. MACleod 

CoA Board Member 

June 6, 1924–January 21, 2012 

As Mount desert island's 

representative to the Maine legislature 

for three sessions, Bar harbor native 

James Macleod was quite helpful to 

CoA's early years. founding trustee 

leslie Brewer credits James with 

helping the college obtain accreditation, 

legitimizing our students and their 

diplomas. James and his wife Jane were 

the owners of the original Bluenose 

Motel; he also worked as vice president 

of marketing and public relations at Bar 

harbor Bank and trust Company, and 

was a member of its board of directors 

for nearly four decades. 

louiS rABineAu 

CoA President from 1984 to 1993 

April 30, 1924–november 21, 2011 

The fall issue of COA included a tribute 

to Lou Rabineau, published just days 

before he died. Hearing the news, alumni 

who knew Lou responded with their own 

memories. Here are just a few: 

"lou was an amazing, warm, intelligent 

man with a great sense of humor. i loved 

Louis Rabineau in front of The Turrets. Courtesy of 

the College of the Atlantic Archives. 

being in Twelfth Night — him playing the 

priest who married lady olivia (me) to 

Sebastian (Clark lawrence '92). we had a 

blast in rehearsal! he will be missed." 

– Bonnie giacovelli '93 

"really sorry to hear the news. i knew 

lou well, served on the board during 

most of his presidency. He was a terrific 

and important president of CoA. i have 

said many times that lou saved the 

college. The fire could have easily wiped 

CoA from the map and the following 

years were some tough sledding for the 

college. lou brought tremendous skill as 

a leader and passion for CoA's mission 

to his work. i admired him greatly. And 

Lou was the officiant at our wedding in 

1997 when laura and i were married in 

the Beatrix farrand garden. he was the 

perfect man for the job." 

– Michael B. Kaiser '85 

"i loved lou. i still have a couple ties he 

gave me, right from around his 

own neck." 

– CedarBough t. Saeji '93 

"i remember lou as always being 

genuinely interested in what students 

were up to. he always had a question, 

wanted to know more, and always 

inquired with a smile, and a word of 

encouragement. … 'Keep at it,' he would 

say, convinced that what we were up to 

was the most important effort on the 

island, at the college, in the world even. 

his legacy is full of good cheer." 

– natalie Springuel '91 

"Very sad to hear. … Lou helped put 

CoA on a trajectory for success without 

many of us ever knowing that it was 

even happening. thank you, lou. By 

the way, who else remembers the 

'louuuuuuuu' chorus at graduation? 

Adulation from the students in the 

highest form." 

– Josh winer '91 

ChriStine ridenour '75 

August 25, 1952–november 13, 2011 

Christine ridenour was one of CoA's 

first students, and our third graduate, 

standing alone in 1975, as then- 

Congressman william S. Cohen gave the 

commencement address. Chrissy was 

devoted to art and architecture, working 

closely with JoAnne Carpenter, faculty 

emerita. with JoAnne, she was crucial in 

launching COA's first art gallery, serving 

as her gallery assistant for two years 

while also devoting herself to working 

with children through her internship and 

senior project. 

helen deMetrA "BeCKY" 

KoulouriS 

January 1, 1953–december 1, 2011 

Becky was part of the group of thirteen 

guinea pig students in the summer 

of 1970. gray Cox, faculty member in 

political economics, who was a student 

in that group, remembers her as 

bringing "great maturity and strength 

to the group." She remained involved 

with the college in its early years, 

then went on to teach in the freeport 

elementary schools and later became 

Bowdoin College's environmental studies 

coordinator. 


EvEr WondEr … 

why Gates 

is called Gates? 

Centered on the western wall of the thomas S. gates, Jr. Community Center — and 

witness to objections and ovations, dances and discussions from numerous All College 

Meetings, job talks, plays, and other community events — hangs a portrait of a man of 

such piercing intelligence that his gaze borders on skepticism. the portrait is striking 

for another reason: that man is just so very elegant. 

this is thomas S. gates, Jr., who had been US Secretary of Defense under President 

Dwight eisenhower, and had become chairman of the board of Morgan guaranty 

trust (now JP Morgan Chase) when CoA was starting up. 

So why is gates named for him? for that, we went to ed Kaelber, founding CoA 

president, who reminded us that at its beginning COA needed financial support, yes, 

but it also needed respect. Much of the work of drumming up both fell to ed. he went 

around to many people, but few had the international stature of northeast harbor 

summer resident tom gates. tom even had academic credentials. his father had 

been president of the University of Pennsylvania; tom, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of 

the institution, served on its board. 

this Thomas S. Gates print (detail) 

by Albert Murray, 1971, hangs 

in CoA's thomas S. gates, Jr. 

Community Center. 

Says ed, "So, i went to tom and i told him we were thinking of starting a college on the 

island. 'that's a lousy idea,'" tom responded. ed sent him a prospectus. And visited 

him again. "'Well, it's not a bad idea,'" tom allowed. "'But you'll need at least a million 

dollars to finance it.' We'll need some money," Ed agreed. "Not quite a million. Let me 

send you a financial prospectus." At Ed's next visit, Tom thought COA had enough 

merit to write a check for $5,000. But ed stopped him. "A check is nice," he told the 

bank chair, "but i'd rather have you join our board of trustees." By now ed is laughing 

at himself as he continues: "he told me, 'i'll think about it, but i have a word of advice: 

if someone offers you $5,000, take it!'" 

And so began a long and close friendship, with tom joining CoA's board in 1972 

(thanks to encouragement also from founding trustee les Brewer), retiring in 1976 

to become the equivalent of ambassador to China (his title was chief of US liaison 

mission). When tom returned in 1978, ed thought he would make a great board chair. 

So did the University of Pennsylvania. But ed told tom, "Sure, it would be a great 

honor for you to chair the board of the University of Pennsylvania, but here at CoA — 

we really need you!" Tom Gates served as COA board chair from 1979 to 1981. 

Concludes Ed: "Tom knew what the right questions were, he didn't get bogged down 

in trivia. he was interested in the substance of the college, and he opened a lot of 

doors." How fitting that Gates Community Center, one of COA's prime community 

portals, would honor a man who opened many doors early on. 


What is human Ecology to mE? 

Essay and image by Julia De Santis '12 

I have two weeks left as a student before I graduate and venture out into the world, 

and so the obvious question arises: what's next? For me, yes — but I'm also curious 

about you and everyone else. Because I want the world. For you and for me, bien sur! 

But mostly, I just don't want to be responsible for destroying it. Or for sitting around 

talking, deconstructing, and reconstructing ideas until it's too late. 

We are living through a war, a war waged against the planet by the dominant culture 

of consumption, against that which supports all life. And I know we must fight back, 

but how? Especially when the problems are so complex. 

Again and again, I come to this conclusion: we connect. We work to break down 

barriers without destroying our differences. We overcome self-consciousness, 

language, race, gender, and socioeconomics. We destroy every possible barrier that 

keeps you away from me, because if your hand isn't in mine as we step toward the 

future, we are too far apart. 

We refuse to do anything less than … love. 

Because what is love if it is not that which propels us — transforms us — to act from 

our anger and sorrow to use our power and knowledge to live a life in pursuit of 

something better for ourselves, our children, and our community? When I refer to love, 

it is this force and this desire to live and let live. Maybe there's a better word for it. 

Justice, perhaps? Truth? 

This war may be stupid and complicated and I don't know which side will win, but I 

live with the hope that … well, at least that there is still hope. And if it is too late? I live 

believing that fighting on the side of life, light, and love is more fun than giving up. 

So, what's next for this human ecologist? 

Well, whatever I do, wherever I am, I will dance and smile and LOVE my way to the 

future, and I will try my darn hardest to make it a beautiful one. 

COLLEgE OF ThE ATLAnTIC MAgAzInE 49

COA 


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Spring Issue 2012 - College of the Atlantic

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