Facility Focus (Residence Halls)

Unity College: Unity 3

• 10/01/16

Designed and built exclusively for first-year students, Unity 3 opened for Fall Semester 2016 at Unity College in Unity, ME, in August. The residence hall represents the latest in $20 million invested since 2012 in new campus infrastructure focused on student success at America’s Environmental College.

In order to help differentiate the “hightouch” residential experience at Unity College, Unity 3 has capacity for two resident advisors and a resident director in addition to 74 students. In the spirit of inclusivity and personal choice, all bathrooms and showers are private and genderneutral. The two-story, 18,200-square-foot residence hall offers dedicated areas for students who wish to study outside their rooms in a quiet setting, in support of Unity’s commitment to student success.

Appropriate to America’s Environmental College, Unity 3 features state-of-the-art energy-efficient features, such as air-source heat pumps with energy recovery, passive solar design and high-efficiency insulation and lighting, as with the two other campus residence halls built since 2013.

Unity 3 was built to support the first-year experience for incoming Unity College students, and to accommodate record enrollment at the school. Unity College welcomed 705 students this 2016-17 academic year, shattering its previous enrollment record of 638 students set in Fall 2015 — a 10.5 percent year-over-year increase.

“At this time of increasing interest in sustainability science, we feel we need to make a strong commitment to support those students who have chosen America’s Environmental College to launch their careers in high-growth green industries,” Unity College President Dr. Melik Peter Khoury says. “That means supplying state-of-the-industry housing and academic spaces that support learning, community and sustainability. Unity 3 is only our latest commitment in fulfilling that mission.”