Assateague Island Roundup is one of 46 photographs featured in the exhibition "In Praise of Wild Horses: A Photographic Journey by Audrey Frost" currently on display in the Ethel H. Blum Gallery through January 6. Frost '95, from Calais, Maine, completed her college internship at a wild horse preserve in North Dakota. For her senior project she visited four preserves to create a photo-documentary on feral horses. INSIDE: COA NEWS President's Message 2 Dr. Elijah Anderson's 1995 Commencement Address WINTER 1995/1996 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC BAR HARBOR, MAINE 3 Issues of Community Empowerment COA in the Yucatan 6 by Peggy M. Shepard A Tribute to Dr. Elizabeth Russell Last spring, Taj Chibnik '95 organized a lec- Inaccessibility to power is a factor in the 7 ture series devoted to environmental justice. politics of pollution, and the lack of politi- Hiroshima: Then and Now Titled "When Environmental and Social Con- cal power has turned some communities by William cerns Coincide," the speaker series featured into dumping grounds for life-threatening Sloane Coffin, Jr. Peggy Shepard, executive director of West 8 toxins and pollutants. A functional and Harlem Environmental Action; Cathy Hinds, significant link persists between racism, Dormitory Dedication director of the Military Toxics Project; John poverty, powerlessness and the assault on 13-14 Banks, director of the Department of Natural certain communities. Poor communities The Prints of Resources for the Penobscot Indian Nation; and tend to be less informed, less organized Richard Estes Beverly Paigen, senior staff scientist at the Jack- and less politically influential. Such com- 15 son Laboratory in Bar Harbor. munities are prime targets for abuse from In Memoriam: Shepard, who spearheaded a successful suit polluters, both public and private. Such Daniel Kane against the city of New York regarding the sit- communities suffer from environmental 17 ing of a sewage treatment plant, gave the racism, which results when policies lead to keynote address on April 6. An excerpt from her Commencement 1995 the siting of potentially hazardous facili- 22 talk follows. continued on page 10 COA's logo: What does it mean? President's Message On Wednesday, September 6, 1995, in the Thomas S. Gates, Jr. Community Center auditorium President Steven K. Katona welcomed 85 new undergraduates, the largest incoming class in the college's history. The students hailed from 26 states, as well as from Turkey, Israel, the Czech Republic, the Bahamas and Nova Scotia. The following th is an excerpt from President Katona's convocation address. is the symbol for tree At College of the Atlantic, as at most institutions, five- or ten-year plans are M for humans and the most common denominations in the long-term planning arsenal. Attempts to see much farther into the future are usually confounded by unexpected for the ocean. developments, such as changes in personnel or financial status, technological innovations that render existing methods obsolete, or even by new intellectual The three signs are paradigms. It is unlikely that the good founders of our college could have fore- intertwined in a circle seen, for example, the enormous new roles for computers and information symbolizing the earth processing. and the universe. For these and other reasons, five- or ten-year plans are reasonably appropri- ate for colleges and universities. Most degree programs take four or five years to complete; buildings take about four years to plan and construct; and new areas of academic interest, such as women's studies and environmental justice, arise every decade or SO. As it happens, several things have coincided to guarantee that 1995-1996 COA News will be a year when the College of the Atlantic campus community will be The Newsletter of intensely involved in such planning and evaluation activities. College of the Atlantic First, we are up for reaccreditation in 1997 by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). Following the most recent visit of the Winter 1995/1996 NEASC team in 1987, the college received a 10-year accreditation, the longest EDITOR AND DIRECTOR that the association awards. Now it is time to review all aspects of our opera- OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS tions and progress, refine our goals and configure our plans for the next decade. Carl Little Second, the trustees are planning a capital campaign for endowment to cel- PRESIDENT ebrate the college's Silver Anniversary. Capital campaigns are most successful Steven K. Katona when potential donors can see a strategic plan that describes where the institu- tion is going and how it intends to get there. Such a plan will also help us make CHAIRMAN OF THE optimal use of new opportunities, such as the chance to expand the summer BOARD OF TRUSTEES Clyde E. Shorey, Jr. continued on page 16 DEAN OF INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT Karen Cadbury WRITERS: Steven Katona, Carl Little, Alice Lukens, Nancy Stevick COA News is published twice a year. It is circulated to alumni, students, parents, and friends of College of the Atlantic. PRINTER Downeast Printing and Graphics DESIGNER Z Studio Left to right: College of the Atlantic Trustee Edward McC. Blair, President Steven printed on recycled paper Katona and George Page, host of the PBS program Nature, boarded Mr. Blair's boat the Lucy Too to search for whales in the Gulf of Maine in August. COA NEWS 2 WINTER 1995/1996