Millard Dority parting gift
Millard and Jamien St. Pierre ’06 in 2005 working in the garden.
At College of the Atlantic’s weekly All College Meeting on Wednesday, January 25, 2022, director of campus planning, buildings, and public safety Millard Dority was preparing to present the minutes for Campus Planning and Building Committee for what would be the last time in his 51-year career at the college. But before he could share the doings of this important committee, COA David Rockefeller Family Chair in Ecosystem Management and Protection Ken Cline rose to challenge the minutes—a parliamentary maneuver often used to correct recorded statements or even for political means. But in this case, Cline had a more novel motive: to use this time to honor Dority’s lengthy contributions to college governance and to present him with a parting gift, a luxurious knife handmade by COA provost Ken Hill.
Madame Moderator, I would like to challenge the minutes of this committee. I cannot believe that they are allowing Millard to retire or at the very least have not passed a resolution honoring his outstanding service to governance at COA.
Since they have not, on behalf of all the past steering chairs and members of the Steering Committee, we would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Millard for his invaluable contributions to participatory governance at College of the Atlantic.
Millard, your commitment to democracy and genuine participation in our governance system has been exemplary. You believe in our system and you act on those beliefs. Some of your contributions include:
Involving, training, and empowering students through their participation on CPBC
Faithful attendance at ACMs and conscientious reporting of CPBC minutes (how many thousands of times?)
Your willingness to work with the community and have real conversations about hard topics (even when you have heard the same topic raised for the 25th time—dogs on campus anyone?)
Your openness to feedback and receptivity to comments from everyone (first years to presidents and trustees)
And your faith that we make better decisions together than we do in isolation.
You did all of this and still got stuff done. Best of all, you got stuff done in a way that strengthened us as a community.
As a small token of our esteem and appreciation, we want to present you with a knife crafted by our own provost, Ken Hill. I think that you will find this knife to be especially fitting.
The wood on the handle is from the copper beech tree in front of Turrets.
The center of the mosaic pin in the knife is made from a copper nail from the Turrets roof when you did the replacement.
And in the words of Ken Hill, “This knife reminds me of Millard—it is full of character, very functional, and it will cut you if you mess with it.”
Thank you Millard. Governance at COA will miss you.
