CO M M U N I T Y N OT E S
The efforts of Judy Allen, director of information services, and registrar David Baldwin resulted in a $134,000 grant from the Davis Educational Foundation to upgrade CAMS, the academic management software used by the registrar’s and financial aid offices. Among other improvements, the upgrade, CAMS Enterprise, includes integrated course management and online registration and grading. Allied Whale, with the help of director and COA faculty member Sean Todd, received its seventh Prescott Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Program award, for $97,800. Funds are used to pay for our stranding response activity, including salary for the stranding coordinator. COA will upgrade the response vehicle to a heavier grade diesel vehicle that can haul our boat and trailer systems more safely. Allied Whale also received a $50,000 grant from an anonymous foundation. Funds will support field research in the second year of a five-year study to quantify use of critical habitat by large whale species in the northern Gulf of Maine, as well as continued support for the North Atlantic Humpback Whale Catalog. David Baldwin, registrar, is a founding member of The Downeast Rail Heritage Preservation Trust, working on developing the Downeast Scenic Railroad, especially the Washington Junction/Ellsworth to Green Lake section of the Calais Branch Line to create a twenty-four-mile round trip excursion ride with exceptional views of wetland marshes, Little Rocky Pond and Green Lake, plus an occasional osprey or moose sighting. http://www.downeastscenicrail.org. COA students and alumni participated in Quarryography, a full-length dance complete with excavator at a Stonington quarry this August. Tawanda Chabikwa ’07 was a guest dancer. Also in the performance were former visiting student Scott Springer and current student Samantha Haskell. When teenagers connect to the waters off the coast of Maine, learning to fend for themselves and reach out to others, their college choice can be none other than College of the Atlantic—at least according to a new young adult novel, 68 Knots, written by Michael Evans, University of Indiana journalism professor. Donna Gold, director of public relations, completed a series of nine oral histories of Camden seniors, published as individual booklets for the Camden Public Library through a grant from MBNA. She also published two pamphlets based on oral histories conducted in Stockton Springs on a grant from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation. Lynn Havsall, director of museum programs at the Dorr Museum, participated in shorebird banding on the International Heritage Site of Delaware Bay, where shorebirds feed enroute from South America to their Arctic breeding grounds. She worked with an international team coordinated by the State of Delaware and opened the way for COA students to join this international effort. Havsall also received a full scholarship from Bat Conservation International and a generous donation from a COA trustee to cover airfare to attend a Bat Conservation and Management Workshop at the American Museum of Natural History’s Southwestern Research Station in Portal, Arizona. The Dorr Museum will be working with Acadia National Park, COA students, Mount Desert Island schools and park neighbors to improve bat habitat. Jane Hultberg, Thorndike Library director, along with the entire COA community, sends deep thanks to former New York City drama critic Norman Nadel, now living part-time in Trenton, Maine, for the excellent collection of art books donated to the library. More than two hundred fine arts and photography books are now part of our collection, including a limited edition of Christo: Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado, a gorgeous largeformat edition of Ben Shahn’s work.
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