This Week’s College: Unity College, Unity, Maine
Unity College – America’s Environmental College is located on 225 acres of land on the shores of Winnecook Lake, or Unity Pond as it’s fondly known there. In the small town of Unity, Maine, it’s not too far from either the Atlantic coast or from the tail end of the Appalachian mountains as they peter out towards the north end of the state. Its location and its name make it the perfect place to focus on the ways we can help to save our planet and that is precisely what their purpose and their goal in educating the next generation is about.
Unity’s goal is to educate students to become environmental leaders who are ready and willing to take on real world challenges and meet the demands of a future that requires sustainability and knowledge to meet the needs of many. They offer 17 different programs in environmental studies all meant to help students become successful at leading and making change into the future when it comes to our environment.
Sustainability Science is the basis for how Unity approaches their environmental leadership programming. They are very purposeful about student learning and believe that learning and experience should go hand in hand. At Unity, sustainability science is a problem based, solution oriented framework that brings together the natural sciences, biological sciences, social sciences, and humanities to study and address sustainability in human environment coupled systems. Sustainability science:
Learning at Unity isn’t just done in classrooms. Experiential learning is every bit as important and they want you to spend time doing it. Becoming resourceful, finding practical solutions to problems, improvising with what you have, thinking on your feet, all of these are skills best acquired by working in real world situations. Unity’s Environmental Citizen Curriculum Goals consists of a series of goals for students to accomplish rather than simply being a list of courses to take (don’t get me wrong, you have to take courses, too). There are a total of five goals the curriculum aims to achieve:
Community based learning is another part of Unity College that is crucial to their mission. Classrooms include regular rooms and spaces with technology (class size is no bigger than 21), but they also include Unity Pond, bogs, rivers, streams, woodlands, and areas around the school as well. Students have participated in bear studies, wind power studies, HEMS (hemlock ecosystem management study), and Tardigrade (a study on marine biology). Whether students are working to help promote local food systems, or combat hunger, two programs the college helps to support, or they are engaged in co-curricular work with the NorthStar Leadership Program or the College Outreach for Ocean Literacy, students will learn by doing.
Unity’s programs are extremely unique. Despite the solid liberal arts classes you will take here, there are only 17 majors and all of them are in Environmental leadership. Some of them are fairly rare. This is one of the few places where you can major in Art & The Environment, or Adventure Based Education. They also offer Captive Wildlife Care, Environmental Writing & Media Studies, and Conservation Law Enforcement. These are pretty niche and at a school where 97% of students receive financial aid that’s usually a great match.
There is an Honors Program at Unity. It comes with some very nice extras including experiences with faculty, travel, and the possibility of transdisciplinary work. You will apply as a second semester student so it’s something to work towards. You are also required to do a senior thesis of some kind which is an attractive thing for those thinking of graduate school later on.
So what’s it like to go to Unity? First of all you’ll have to participate in Nova. The Nova Orientation trip is a time for you to make the transition from high school to Unity. It will include community building activities, some community service, and a wide range of outdoor adventure type things to choose from. Imagine hiking, backpacking, rafting, canoeing, climbing, etc. It looks fairly epic. People who love this sort of thing are people who love Unity. This is a passionate, dedicated group of folks. They love their environment, they love being in the environment, and they are dedicated to it. If you’re like this, you should join them. I think you will like each other.
It should come as no surprise that Unity’s TerraHaus is a passive solar house, the first such residence hall in the nation. It’s pretty chill on campus, open doors are pretty common (it’s a small college and a small town). About 75% of folks live on campus. The rooms are pretty comfortable (mostly doubles or singles). Food is often locally sourced and definitely sustainable. They have done a lot to make sure that feeding people isn’t just delicious and good for you, but good for us and our planet.
Unity’s Outdoor Adventure Center is pretty awesome. There’s a challenge course for those who want to spend some time in the woods. They also have a climbing wall for practice and they offer climbing clinics for those who crave the granite to be found all over the state. The OAC is also well stocked with all you could want in Maine: canoes, kayaks, maps, stoves, tents, sleeping bags, the works really. They will set you up. There’s some awesome winter camping in Maine. Seriously, it can be amazing!
Unity is a USCAA school with some varsity athletics. It’s mostly a soccer, cross country, basketball, volleyball kind of place. Club sports are bigger and with greater variety. So close to Canada and in New England, hockey shows up in the club sports line up, as does lacrosse and ultimate frisbee. Timber sports also make their way in there. Flag football gets in on the intramurals with floor hockey. Plus the wellness center provides yoga, martial arts, dance, and exercise classes.
There are about 30 clubs at Unity. They run the gamut from herpetology to role playing games. There are the usual suspects: art, drama, chorus, archery, GSA, Guiding Eyes for the Blind, rock climbing. And then there are the ones you might expect at an environmental college: beekeeping, wildlife society, trail crew, marine biology, FFA (Future Farmers of America), search and rescue. Then there are some that are a bit more unusual: primitive skills and naturalist living, sugarmakers (this makes more sense in New England), big worm ultimate, woodsmen. What I take away from this though is that students here are completely comfortable in their own skin. That’s a great thing.
Is Unity for you? Are you passionate about the role of wildfire in the woods? That’s a club here. If the answer is yes…
Pros:
Cons:
Unity College – America’s Environmental College is located on 225 acres of land on the shores of Winnecook Lake, or Unity Pond as it’s fondly known there. In the small town of Unity, Maine, it’s not too far from either the Atlantic coast or from the tail end of the Appalachian mountains as they peter out towards the north end of the state. Its location and its name make it the perfect place to focus on the ways we can help to save our planet and that is precisely what their purpose and their goal in educating the next generation is about.
Unity’s goal is to educate students to become environmental leaders who are ready and willing to take on real world challenges and meet the demands of a future that requires sustainability and knowledge to meet the needs of many. They offer 17 different programs in environmental studies all meant to help students become successful at leading and making change into the future when it comes to our environment.
Sustainability Science is the basis for how Unity approaches their environmental leadership programming. They are very purposeful about student learning and believe that learning and experience should go hand in hand. At Unity, sustainability science is a problem based, solution oriented framework that brings together the natural sciences, biological sciences, social sciences, and humanities to study and address sustainability in human environment coupled systems. Sustainability science:
- Stresses the connections across the many disciplines in the larger field of environmental studies
- Prepares students to take on influential environmental leadership roles in a wide range of careers
- Provides a solid liberal arts foundation for communicating and thinking critically about environmental challenges
- Includes coursework in project and financial management—essential skills for post-graduation success
Learning at Unity isn’t just done in classrooms. Experiential learning is every bit as important and they want you to spend time doing it. Becoming resourceful, finding practical solutions to problems, improvising with what you have, thinking on your feet, all of these are skills best acquired by working in real world situations. Unity’s Environmental Citizen Curriculum Goals consists of a series of goals for students to accomplish rather than simply being a list of courses to take (don’t get me wrong, you have to take courses, too). There are a total of five goals the curriculum aims to achieve:
- Grounding each degree programs in a broad liberal arts base
- Integrating the humanities and social sciences into scientific disciplines that address environmental problems
- Engaging students in the fundamental questions at the center of sustainability science, focusing on the dynamic intersections of nature and society
- Providing students with the communication and critical-thinking skills that meet the demands of a marketplace in search of environmentally literate professionals
- Preparing students for the central task of moving knowledge into action
Community based learning is another part of Unity College that is crucial to their mission. Classrooms include regular rooms and spaces with technology (class size is no bigger than 21), but they also include Unity Pond, bogs, rivers, streams, woodlands, and areas around the school as well. Students have participated in bear studies, wind power studies, HEMS (hemlock ecosystem management study), and Tardigrade (a study on marine biology). Whether students are working to help promote local food systems, or combat hunger, two programs the college helps to support, or they are engaged in co-curricular work with the NorthStar Leadership Program or the College Outreach for Ocean Literacy, students will learn by doing.
Unity’s programs are extremely unique. Despite the solid liberal arts classes you will take here, there are only 17 majors and all of them are in Environmental leadership. Some of them are fairly rare. This is one of the few places where you can major in Art & The Environment, or Adventure Based Education. They also offer Captive Wildlife Care, Environmental Writing & Media Studies, and Conservation Law Enforcement. These are pretty niche and at a school where 97% of students receive financial aid that’s usually a great match.
There is an Honors Program at Unity. It comes with some very nice extras including experiences with faculty, travel, and the possibility of transdisciplinary work. You will apply as a second semester student so it’s something to work towards. You are also required to do a senior thesis of some kind which is an attractive thing for those thinking of graduate school later on.
So what’s it like to go to Unity? First of all you’ll have to participate in Nova. The Nova Orientation trip is a time for you to make the transition from high school to Unity. It will include community building activities, some community service, and a wide range of outdoor adventure type things to choose from. Imagine hiking, backpacking, rafting, canoeing, climbing, etc. It looks fairly epic. People who love this sort of thing are people who love Unity. This is a passionate, dedicated group of folks. They love their environment, they love being in the environment, and they are dedicated to it. If you’re like this, you should join them. I think you will like each other.
It should come as no surprise that Unity’s TerraHaus is a passive solar house, the first such residence hall in the nation. It’s pretty chill on campus, open doors are pretty common (it’s a small college and a small town). About 75% of folks live on campus. The rooms are pretty comfortable (mostly doubles or singles). Food is often locally sourced and definitely sustainable. They have done a lot to make sure that feeding people isn’t just delicious and good for you, but good for us and our planet.
Unity’s Outdoor Adventure Center is pretty awesome. There’s a challenge course for those who want to spend some time in the woods. They also have a climbing wall for practice and they offer climbing clinics for those who crave the granite to be found all over the state. The OAC is also well stocked with all you could want in Maine: canoes, kayaks, maps, stoves, tents, sleeping bags, the works really. They will set you up. There’s some awesome winter camping in Maine. Seriously, it can be amazing!
Unity is a USCAA school with some varsity athletics. It’s mostly a soccer, cross country, basketball, volleyball kind of place. Club sports are bigger and with greater variety. So close to Canada and in New England, hockey shows up in the club sports line up, as does lacrosse and ultimate frisbee. Timber sports also make their way in there. Flag football gets in on the intramurals with floor hockey. Plus the wellness center provides yoga, martial arts, dance, and exercise classes.
There are about 30 clubs at Unity. They run the gamut from herpetology to role playing games. There are the usual suspects: art, drama, chorus, archery, GSA, Guiding Eyes for the Blind, rock climbing. And then there are the ones you might expect at an environmental college: beekeeping, wildlife society, trail crew, marine biology, FFA (Future Farmers of America), search and rescue. Then there are some that are a bit more unusual: primitive skills and naturalist living, sugarmakers (this makes more sense in New England), big worm ultimate, woodsmen. What I take away from this though is that students here are completely comfortable in their own skin. That’s a great thing.
Is Unity for you? Are you passionate about the role of wildfire in the woods? That’s a club here. If the answer is yes…
Pros:
- Focused curriculum for those passionate about the environment
- Students are comfortable in their own skin here
- Strong sense of community and purpose
- Terrific location for this mission
Cons:
- Very focused curriculum
- Students here are dedicated to what they do, it’s not a hobby
- Students here know who they are, if you don’t you’ll be left out
- Can feel very small and isolating