Unity Alumni Uniting to Help Our Faculty & Staff

My fellow Unity College Alumni,

As many of you know, this week Unity College announced it had abruptly laid off 33 faculty and staff, and furloughed another 20, with almost no warning. Professors who have taught for decades, taught generations of students, let go with little thought or care to how it would affect so many of their staff members who live in a small, rural community during the financial strain of a pandemic. 

Unity College’s values used to line up with its name. We stood together as a unit. THE Unit. When we fell, we had someone to pick us up, when we wobbled again, we had someone to steady us, and when we thought we would never be able to stand again, we had someone to lean on. Those someones were our professors.

Now it is our turn to help them stand. It is our turn to help pick them up where the school pushed them down, allow them to lean on us for support, and to help them steady themselves after these massive changes, We likely cannot reverse the school’s decision to probably shutter the campus permanently in order to gain back those positions. But we CAN help make a difference in their lives. We CAN make it clear to our school that our support is with the professors that represent everything Unity stood for.

So take a moment.

I want you to think back to your time as a student at Unity. Close your eyes and remember what it felt like to be back on campus. 

Does it smell like autumn leaves as you rush across the field from Wood Hall to get to class in B Hall after you overslept? Or maybe you can still feel the frostbite threatening your nose and your hair freezing solid as you head to the Tavern / SAC on a blistering cold day because you remembered Gary and the Pacemakers were playing that night, right after you took a shower?

Now stop again, and imagine yourself in class. Are you with Mac in the gym? Or are you in the lab with Emma? Maybe you are in Sandy Stream electrofishing with Potter?  Are you leaving class and Barry stopping you in Koon’s for a chat about the Yankees? Are you walking to your class with Jim Reed, charring about his latest adventure? Is Knupp tricking you all into trying Moose tongue for extra credit? Are you sitting on Aimee’s couch in her office?

Now close your eyes again and imagine never stepping foot on campus, and never meeting any of the those professors. Imagine you never met them, never had those experiences. Imagine you are a new student sitting behind a computer having no idea that the alumni before you developed all of these incredible relationships.

 It doesn’t feel like our Unity, does it? That’s because Unity became like home to so many of us, and home isn’t a place- it’s the people. And at Unity, that meant our professors were our home, they were our family.

So now, I call on all of you to help donate what you can (be it $5 or $50 or $500) to help give our favorite faculty and staff at least a small helping hand as they are forced to start new journeys. After a million school fundraisers filled with pancake breakfasts by Sugar Makers, and Hunter and Huggers dinners- let’s work together to give back to the people who gave their all.

So share the word with your family, your friends, and your fellow alumni, it’s time to step up. #AlumniUnite