Student Work at College of the Atlantic

Michael Keller heading to New York and Berlin on Humanity in Action Fellowship

College of the Atlantic junior Michael Keller will be heading to New York City this summer and Berlin next fall, having received a Michael Keller  highly competitive Humanity in Action Fellowship. Keller was one of 59 students chosen out of the 375 American students who applied-and the only one studying in Maine-selected for this award.

The Humanity in Action fellowships bring together students from Europe and the United States in either New York or one of five European cities, for five weeks of intensive study of contemporary minority and human rights issues. Keller will be spending the summer in New York with 11 other Americans and 18 Europeans. The focus of their discussions will be on the legal, cultural, political and economic resources available to advocate for an inclusive tolerant society.

Following a summer of listening, discussing and debating, at times with ambassadors and other international leaders, Keller will head to Berlin where he will continue the trans-Atlantic dialogue through an internship and weekly seminars.

The program was founded in 1997 to train American and European student leaders to “identify and surmount institutionalized violations in democratic societies,” according to executive director, Judith S. Goldstein, who has a home on Mount Desert Island. She has called the program, “pre-conflict resolution.”

Keller was chosen, in part, because of the work he did last summer in his hometown of Charlottesville, VA, working with the International Rescue Committee. Funded by the Kathryn Wasserman Davis 100 Projects for Peace program, Keller interviewed and photographed refugees resettled in Charlottesville from around the globe on their experiences and reactions to life in the United States. According to Jamie McKown, James Russell Wiggins Chair in Government and Polity at COA, Keller’s Asylum and Acceptance project was “powerful and moving to all who watched it unfold.” Continues McKown, Keller “is passionate about the cause of social justice, human rights and the minority protection in a democratic setting.”

The last part of the program is to fulfill an “action project,” putting the thought and discussion into deeds. This project may well find Keller back in Virginia focusing on refugee issues.

Fellows are selected for their leadership ability, demonstrated commitment to human rights and minority issues, and high academic achievement.

-Donna Gold