Alumni & Friends Archives - Page 5 of 8

Alumni & Friends

Meet a Mentor: Jhovaé Irving

Jhovaé Irving is an alumna of Maine Coast Semester 48 and one of our BIPOC Mentorship program volunteers. We created the mentorship program in 2020 to provide additional support for semester students who identify as members of minoritized racial groups by pairing them with neer-peer mentors. Irving says volunteering has been a learning experience for her as well, “I’m in awe of how differently [my mentees] have approached uncomfortable topics. They’ve shown me how to be braver and speak up a little more, even if it’s on a thorny subject.”

February 10, 2022

Alumni & Friends

Watch: BIPOC Mentorship Program Panel Discussion

Watch the recording of Program Spotlight: Connecting Students and Alumni Through Our BIPOC Mentorship Program. We created this program in 2020 to provide additional support for Maine Coast Semester students who identify as members of underrepresented communities by pairing them with near-peer mentors.

February 16, 2022

An undated photo from our early days, likely the 1930's

Alumni & Friends

Read “A Woodchuck’s Dream” From 1928

Read the delightful story, “A Woodchuck’s Dream,” an unattributed short story published in one of the earliest Chewonki Chronicles, circa 1928. In the story, a Woodchuck group (the moniker for our youngest campers at the time) is enchanted away from their cabin in the middle of the night by a stupendous discovery. But, their wonder quickly turns to terror as they confront a monstrous foe in the woods.

February 18, 2022

Alumni & Friends

Chewonki ABCs from 1934

In our early days, Chewonki campers could earn writing “credits” by submitting content to founder Clarence Allen’s monthly family bulletin, called the Chronicle. Campers reported on camp adventures and wrote jokes, poems, and short pieces of fiction (most of which borrowed plot elements from the era’s action/adventure films).

Allen included Chewonki ABCs in the August 19, 1934, Chronicle edition. It is unattributed, and likely written by a camper.

April 5, 2022

Alumni & Friends

Reunited and It Feels So Good

Last Wednesday, Chewonki Alumni & Friends gathered at Lamplighter Brewing’s newest taproom to happily celebrate spring’s return, rekindle relationships, and sample Lamplighter’s yummy beers and charcuterie boards. The festive occasion – our first since the onset of Covid – was attended by over 40 alumni and former staff members.

May 6, 2022

Alumni & Friends

Alumna BLOOMs with Bigelow Labs

Congratulations to Maine Coast Semester 67 Alumna, Sophia Kovacs (Morse High School, Bath, ME), who recently completed Bigelow Laboratory’s Keller BLOOM Program. BLOOM (Bigelow Laboratory Orders of Magnitude) is a week-long ocean science-intensive that invites high school juniors to work side-by-side with Bigelow’s marine biologists.

July 8, 2022

Alumni & Friends

Squishing Deeper into our Epic Mud Rove Tradition

Last month we published an article about our epic Mud Rove tradition, and we were excited to hear from several alumni & friends remembering their mud roves in Montsweag Brook. And a few folks told us there was more to the story…

August 8, 2022

Alumni & Friends

Forrest Nonconformist: Alumn Rethinks Reforestation

“If you wanted to reforest the Chewonki Farm, you wouldn’t plant trees. You would simply stop mowing. We have all these promising carbon-offset programs, but they are disconnected from reality.” -Forrest Fleischman

Since his early days as a Chewonki camper, student, and staffer in the 1990s and 2000s, Forrest Fleischman has become a leading expert in forest policy and governance. An associate professor in the Department of Forest Resources at the University of Minnesota, Fleischman’s work examines the intersection of scientific knowledge, government expertise, and civic engagement in policy-making and implementation and the outcomes of resulting policies [1]. His ideas have been featured by ProPublica, the BBC, NPR, Science News, and many others.

August 9, 2022

Alumni & Friends

Photos: Willard Morgan’s Send-off Celebration

On Tuesday, August 23rd, nearly 100 current and former staff members, alums, and friends joined us on campus to celebrate Willard Morgan’s eighteen years at

August 25, 2022

Alumni & Friends

Majora Inspiration

Last week we were thrilled to host acclaimed Social-Entrepreneur, Peabody Award-winning broadcaster, and MacArthur Genius, Majora Carter, as part of our Friday Night Speaker Series.

October 5, 2022

Category: Alumni & Friends