About

College of the Atlantic is a distinctive college located on the coast of Maine in the United States. Some 300 students attend COA; about 60 of them are international students. The college was founded in 1969 on the premise that education should go beyond understanding the world as it is, to enabling students to actively shape its future. It has pioneered a special interdisciplinary approach to undergraduate education—human ecology—that is especially well suited to developing the types of leaders needed by all sectors of society in addressing the compelling and growing human needs of our world.

While graduates go on to be lawmakers, physicians, poets and scientists, all students major in Human Ecology, examining—and improving—the relationships between humans and our natural, social and built environments.

COA’s small size and individualized curriculum encourages tutorials, intensive seminar-style classes and frequent faculty-student interchanges. Having one major means that COA has no departments and no departmental requirements; classes are interdisciplinary. Coursework consists of readings, usually from primary sources, as well as active investigation. These efforts culminate in a term-long capstone project. COA offers one of the very few undergraduate sustainable business programs and a food systems program that connects COA’s organic farm to an organic research center in the United Kingdom and a graduate school in Germany.

Strategy

College of the Atlantic has been carbon neutral for greenhouse gases since December 19, 2007. It achieved this by reducing and avoiding those emissions it can, and by carefully calculating all other emissions (including that of visitors to campus). These emissions are offset. All electricity is now purchased from a low-impact hydroelectric generator in Maine. A wind turbine powers the farmhouse on the college’s outlying organic farm (which supplies some of the produce to the college’s dining hall). The college has completed an energy audit, established a bicycle plan, encourages telecommuting when possible and has switched all possible incandescent lightbulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs. Recycling has been part of COA life since its first year of classes in 1972. All offices have paper recycling containers. All kitchens have composting bins and all food is composted. When the college uses disposable table service, it chooses compostable items, which are composted at the college’s organic farm. It does not serve water in bottles. Just about all paper used on campus and in publications is recycled and publications are generally printed with soy ink.

The Kathryn W. Davis Student Residence Village, is our signature sustainability complex. Completed in August 2008, it was constructed with an exceptional level of thermal integrity and a super-insulated design. As a result, the heat load is minimal. Since January 2009, the heat and hot water for these residences and the adjacent Deering Common Campus Center (comprising one-quarter of the campus) comes from a clean-burning wood pellet stove, keeping carbon emissions at a bare minimum. The houses are outfitted with composting toilets and grey-water recycling to minimize water use. Recycling and composting bins are built into all kitchens. Lights are LED or compact fluorescent. All wood is
FSC-certified. Throughout campus, all landscaping on campus is organic, with all clippings composted. Since 1973, its first summer, the college has hosted an organic community garden for the surrounding area on campus.