Darron Collins is an alumnus of College of the Atlantic and is now the school’s president.
The college offers one degree— human ecology—but students apply that perspective to a wide variety of interests across the humanities, the environmental sciences, and arts. An important part of the school’s pedagogy is applied learning, so many students are greatly involved in the surrounding communities. Two years ago Collins partnered with the Island Institute to lead an innovative educational and sustainability project that’s worked to bring the energy innovations from Samsø Island, Denmark, to islands off the coast of Maine. Collins is not only trying to localize his efforts at the school to improve the surrounding community, he is also trying to attract national attention to this unique college. Collins has his doctorate in cultural anthropology and prior to his role at the Mount Desert Island college, he worked as managing director at World Wildlife Fund, where he helped lead a project to save the largest member of the salmon family, the Mongolian taimen, from the brink of extinction. He was recognized as a Barry Goldwater Scholar and was a Thomas J. Watson Fellow and a Wenner- Gren Anthropological Fellow.