COLLABORATIONS " We're par t of a complex web of personal, intimate connec tions," said College of the Atlantic commencement speaker Dr. Paul Farmer. The eminent medical doc tor, public health advocate, overall humanist, and newly cer tif ied human ecologist told COA's class of 2013, "All social justice ef for ts require teamwork , and a global endeavor requires a great many par tners to get things done. … Par tner hard!" he urged the crowd assembled under the translucent tent. " Whether you look hard at the life burgeoning in a pond or at labor migration, whether you get your news from the changing seasons or from The Colber t Repor t, looking hard, and looking critically, reminds us that there's no honest way to deny our connec tedness and our complexit y," the good doc tor continued. It's fair to say that most of that audience already knew the impor tance of teamwork , sharing , collaboration. What's dif ferent about COA is that we recognize, honor, and credit these connec tions throughout our entire s ystem. We don' t assume that students only learn from teachers, or that teachers have all the answers. Our professors learn from each other and from students — and students learn from each other, from their teachers, from the communit y, and also from themselves, from their own obser vations and understandings. Collaboration f lourishes where hierarchy is diminished. While we haven' t eliminated hierarchy at COA , we do downplay it. Recently Ed Kaelber, our founding president, was reminiscing with Ann Peach, his former assistant, about the early days. " There was a lack of pomposit y in those days," remembers Ed. " You may be direc tor of admissions, you may be Ed Kaelber, you may be Ann Peach, but if there's a snowstorm, you pick up a shovel. … And it worked." It still work s. We may have a bit more division of labor nowadays — an army of Buildings and Grounds work studies to chip ice, and even a miniature plow for the many walking paths meandering through campus — but that sense that we're all in it together, that all communit y members expec t to be treated as equals, and learning comes from a myriad of sources is what collaboration, COA st yle, is all about. Of course, we've only scratched the sur face — and a magazine can only convey the verbal and visual. May I sug gest you put on a bit of jazz, maybe watch the video of Nathaniel Hilliard's 2013 senior projec t concer t from the COA website (his music per formed in collaboration with his mentor, facult y member John Cooper), maybe munch on a morning glor y muf f in from Take- A-Break, the cookbook by Lise Desrochers, co-direc tor of food ser vices, and remember that the stories here are samples, representations of COA's many collaborative ef for ts. –DG
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COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE