COLLEGE ATLANTIC CATALOG 1984 1985 "To be at COA-as a student or a member of the staff-is to be at a college that offers people the free- dom to be better than average." "College of the Atlantic is an in- stitution whose essence resides in its people and their ideas and efforts. Through its human ecology per- spective it promotes focused inter- disciplinary studies and indepen- dent work, a blending of theory and practice, scholarship and service, self-motivation and self-governance. As COA enters its second decade, it remains committed to retaining its small size and high quality. Just as COA's logo depicts interconnected- ness with its intertwined runic sym- bols for wave, trees and humans, SO COA's educational philosophy equips its students to deal creatively and realistically with the social and natural environments in which they live and which they will help to shape." Just Judith P. Swazey 0. Lucay President A MESSAGE FROM RENE DUBOS In 1933 Chicago celebrated its hundredth anniversary with the World's Fair whose theme was how modern life depended upon scientific technology. I went to the Fair and I still own the guide book. That book is an extraordinary document because it states that all of the future depends upon scientific technology; a subtitle reads: "Science discovers, industry applies, man conforms. Human beings, societies, will all fall in step with the creations of modern technology." Now I believe that no one would dare write that today. Rather one would write that society must create a scientific technology that conforms to the fundamental needs of human beings and to ecological constraints. And I have a very strong feeling that this is human ecology. As we enter the eighties, the question is how can we use science and technology to create something that is com- patible not only with ecological constraints but also with human needs and aspirations. Oddly enough our society does not know how to educate for that. We have been immensely successful in educating experts of means, that is peo- ple who do things. But we have failed fundamentally in developing experts of aims, that is people who think creatively. Training people SO that they can think about human problems is extremely difficult. Nobody knows how to do it, and my suspicion is that it cannot be done unless we introduce into our educational system some kind of formula where students learn to deal with problem solving, for as soon as one deals with problem solving, or anything concerning human life, the solution is never only a technical one. Rather it is a solution that will demand that one have a sense of history, consider the socioeconomic forces and reflect the dreams of people. In other words problem solving has come to mean reintroducing into any kind of decision all those components that make people behave the way they do. To me this is what College of the Atlantic is about, and I have an absolute conviction that in our society we can no longer be satisfied with training technical experts. We have to be very much preoccupied with preparing people who can think about using science and technology toward some aims, and I hope College of the Atlantic continues along that road, begun only a decade ago. Rene Dubos (1901-1982), former College of the Atlantic trustee and professor emeritus at Rockefeller University, was a 1969 Pulitzer Prize winner. His works include So Human An Animal, Only One Earth and A God Within. 1 INTRODUCTION College of the Atlantic (COA) is an accredited, four-year college awarding the Bachelor of Arts in Human Ecology. COA is small (140 students and grow- ing), independent, and located in Maine on a beautiful coastal campus within walking distance of Acadia National Park. The College's academic programs revolve around the study of the relationships between people and their natural and social environments. The COA curriculum is rooted in concrete problems, not only those of global and local environments but also those of individuals living in a changing and complex society. Courses and workshops approach these subjects in a number of ways, sometimes formally, sometimes informally and personally. At the same time, the COA community is a place where prob- lems are encountered and solved in ways that transcend the classroom ex- perience. COA is an experiment in the ecology of human relationships and in the meaning of community. Students participate in the governance of the College, interact with the island community, and live in an ecologically sound manner. Because COA is committed to opening communication among people in differing fields, there are no "departments" to form barriers between disciplines. Team taught courses achieve common points of understanding by placing historians, designers and scientists in the same classroom. In shaping the College's perspective, the sciences are humanized and the humanities are brought into a position of practical relevance for our time. An education in human ecology works toward a world view that combines the clarity of the sciences with the compassion of arts and literature. The natural resources of the earth are finite; human potential has not yet reached its limits. Our goal is to search for balanced alternatives based on a broader understanding of the earth and the human predicament. This is the creative challenge confronting the human ecologist: to redirect ourselves with understanding and imagination toward an improved quality of life without sacrificing individual integrity or our life-supporting environ- ment. Our guideline for rigorous, ecologically based, interdisciplinary education is best summarized by Leff (1978): `((If) should aim to increase not only environmental knowledge and awareness but also ecological systems thinking, ecological conscience and other aspects of life value systems, and the motivation and ability to take action in accord with all this. Pro- cedures for effectively accomplishing those aims should include: training for problem solving and using active inquiry methods; organizing the total curriculum in as inter- disciplinary a fashion as possible; incorporating values clarification as an integral con- sideration in teaching; encouraging student participation in decision making (that is, sharing power with students); making environmental issues and concerns pervasive throughout the educational curriculum (both horizontally across subject areas and ver- tically across levels); using cooperative goal structures for students; making use of the whole community and helping students to relate environmental studies to actual local environmental, political, and social issues; and involving students (and teachers) in ac- tion projects that include striving for life changes both in the school and in the broader community."