The 2025 College of the Atlantic Summer Institute: Path Breakingwill celebrate exceptional individuals whose work and beliefs have changed how we see the world. Brilliant, brave, defiant, the subjects of our sessions exemplify the power of commitment and the need to seek new solutions. Many of the figures we will hear from or about experienced great personal risk to their careers—some to their lives. They persisted. Their example serves as a reason to hope, a road map for change, a resetting of our moral compass.
Registration opens May 1 for Champlain Society members, and June 1 for the general public.
Thelma Golden Ford Foundation Director and Chief Curator The Studio Museum in Harlem
Glenn Lowry The David Rockefeller Director Museum of Modern Art
Francis Collins Former Director National Institutes of Health
Kizzmekia Corbett-Helaire Melvin J. and Geraldine L. Glimcher Assistant Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
David Rubenstein Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of the Board The Carlyle Group
The Summer Institute is College of the Atlantic's week-long convening of ideas that welcomes experts from around the world to share their perspectives on the most pressing issues of our time.
The event is held under a tent on the North Lawn of College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. The beautiful coastal campus is home to a vibrant and diverse community of students, staff and faculty. The institute kicks off with an evening session on Monday, July 28, followed by morning and evening sessions, Tuesday - Friday.
COA's summer calendar of events is free and open to the public thanks to the generosity of our supporters.
If you’d like to support these events or COA, you can do so here. If you’d like to join The Champlain Society or renew your membership, please click here.
Kizzmekia Corbett-Helaire
