Producer/Hosts: Ron Beard and Liz Graves Theme music for Talk of the Towns Theme music for Talk of the Towns is a medley from Coronach, on a Balnain House Highland Music recording. Talk of the Towns: Local Community concerns and opportunities This month: Overview of College of the Atlantic’s Summer Institute, in collaboration with the National Geographic Society Reflections on what “exploration” means in the 21st century Preview of sessions led by Nadia Rosenthal on the science of viruses and implications for global health Preview of session led by Kim Stanley Robinson, on Space: Our Last Great Commons Guest/s: Darron Collins, President of College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor Nadia Rosenthal, Scientific Director, The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Ministry for the Future, science fiction writer Other links: Summer Institute at College of the Atlantic Can Science Fiction Wake Us Up to Our Climate Reality? – The New Yorker, January 24, 2022 About the hosts: Ron Beard is producer and host of Talk of the Towns, which first aired on WERU in 1993 as part of his community building work as an Extension professor with University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Sea Grant. He took all the journalism courses he could fit in while an undergraduate student in wildlife management and served as an intern with Maine Public Television nightly newscast in the early 1970s. Ron is an adjunct faculty member at College of the Atlantic, teaching courses on community development. Ron served on the Bar Harbor Town Council for six years and is currently board chair for the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor, where he has lived since 1975. Look for him on the Allagash River in June, and whenever he can get away, in the highlands of Scotland where he was fortunate to spend two sabbaticals. Liz Graves joined Talk of the Towns as co-producer and co-host in July 2022, having long admired public affairs programming on WERU and dreamed of getting involved in community radio. She works as the Town Clerk for the Town of Bar Harbor, and is a former editor of the Mount Desert Islander weekly newspaper. Liz grew up in California and came to Maine as a schooner sailor.