Angeline Annesteus '13
Hometown: Port au Prince, Haiti Focus: International Affairs and Environmental Issues
Being part of a community where I can freely express my ideas and opinions is huge. In Haitian culture, it's more likely that your parents or your teachers decide on your behalf what is best for you. As a student your voice can barely be heard; teachers maintain complete authority in classroom and school affairs. So to me democratic values are what make COA a unique school both academically and administratively. I feel that the more students get involved in their studies and COA decision making, the better they get to know faculty and the more they are engaged in changing their life and making the world a better place. Of course, there is still plenty of room for improvement in terms of becoming truer to our mission and working in the larger world. I think the democratic spirit of the institution
translates to an egalitarian spirit among students and faculty; however COA still needs to experiment with collaborative models that can boost engagement. It's great that COA provides everyone — and particularly students — with a fair environment where they can help establish their own rules and find someone to understand their needs and identify their strengths, but so much openness can be difficult for some. How do we define and encourage personal responsibility? Only by asking this question can COA hope to become more democratic, or achieve a decision-making process fairly shared by all.
Benjamin Hitchcock '15 Hometown: Reading, Massachusetts Concentration: Education, Life Sciences
When I first got here, I was incredibly excited about the ACM model. I went to a public school that was totally disempowering — was virtually impossible to speak to anyone with any authority. So the idea of everyone meeting together weekly to discuss issues and make collective decisions was thrilling. My engagement in COA governance peaked in my first year when Margaret Fetzer '15 looked into where the college had invested its endowment. A group of students were really shocked by what she found: a lot of the investments were in really doubtful mega-corporations, from "big pharma" and energy to Walmart, Nestlé, and Coca-Cola. It seemed hypocritical and disconcerting to us, so we formed the Prudent Investment Group to gently lobby the board of trustees to consider something like socially responsible investing, or more local investment, while pushing for greater transparency and student involvement. I'd like to see COA learn from Occupy and traditions of horizontal
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organizing. In smaller student meetings and in certain classes you see some very intentional facilitating, and we can carry that back into the ACM model, making sure that there is consideration for everyone regardless of age, confidence levels as a speaker, gender. If we could try having circle discussions — just being able to see people's facial expressions, and being able to sense where people are at, at all times, would make a huge difference. And obviously, in a circle there's no single point of focalized energy. COA makes a genuine effort to hear student voices, way more so than most other educational institutions. We're really fortunate. At some larger schools, students have had zero traction in getting their voices heard. Here, we're able to see progress and meet and even collaborate with those in power. The degree to which COA is open is extraordinary; I've now joined Steering Committee with the hope of influencing ACM's direction. College of the Atlantic Magazine