So Unity isnt the greatest place. Don't get me wrong I love the people I have met and the things I have experienced I wouldnt trade them for the world but my academic experience here besides three classes has been a complete waste. And the recent news of the Wildlife Care and Education professor who has revamped that entire program is leaving. But the school says that shes leaving because her husband Joe, who is a recent graduate of Unity College has gotten a job in another state. What they neglected to tell us is that The President of Unity College has taken money away from the wildlife program and placed it into his new "sustainablity" majors which only has a few students interesting in enrolling compared to the wildlife program which brings in more than half the students who are enrolled at Unity College. They promised Joe a job as a wildlife professor and then took that offer back. He gets a new job, Amy leaves, and there are about a hundred students who dont have a mentor now because of the president.
Apparently the students mean nothing to the higher ups at this school. Its all about image and it makes me sick. We pay a large amount of money to go to this "college" and what happens? Well they arent going to the professors anything to work with. They say they are "hands on" but please i've probably only had 4 classes where I have gone outside or done hands on activies that help me reinforce the concepts that are learned in the classroom.
This school needs to get a grip and focus on what they want to be. You cant have 8 different programs that are all crap. You should have 8 programs that are amazing. You focus on a few at a time and get them right. The Con Law and Wildlife programs are what bring in the students and what brings in the money. So wouldnt make sense to spend most of the money from those students on their programs? No that would make sense and well Unity doesnt make much sense. So you might ask why are you still there? Well by the time I realized this I was two years in and I had already wasted 60,000 dollars so why waste more by going to another college? And they have the major that I want, its not the program but hell the Wildlife Care and Education major sounds pretty good on a resume'. I know what I want to do so I am going to work for it. I have to say thank you to Unity for the people and opportunities I have come by and the ability to figure out what I want to do for the rest of my life. But I feel bad for the students who dont know, because if they dont know this school will suck you down and most students wont get out.
But I am in the process in writing a letter to UC voices just showing my thoughts and opinions about everything thats been going on around here. And I know other students feel the same, I have had countless discussions about it, it seems like everyday that I'll talk about it with another fellow classmate. It worries me. I will not be proud to say i'm a Unity College Alumni when I graduate in May.
This is the start of my letter:
Dear Unity Faculty, Friends and well everyone else,
I have a few questions about what has been occuring behind the scenes at Unity College. Escpecially with the recent ancouncment that Amy Darcangelo, our only Captive Widlife Care and Education professor, is leaving. I may not agree with everything that she has done to the program but she has made what it is today. We now have a flip in the amount of students interested in the CWC&E program, more than Con Law, Wildlife, Wildlife Biology and Wildlife Conservation combined. She is also one of three wildlife professors we have at Unity. But now we are down one with another on the way out, I dont know if most of the underclassmen know but Jim Nelson is retiring at the end of the year which leaves us Dave Knupp. Don't get me wrong Dave Knupp is one of my favorite professors at Unity College but he's not magic. He can not teach wildlife techniques, wildlife identification, north american wildlife, wildlife ecology and management, ornithology, mammology, animal behavior, and any sections of biology. I'm sure many of you are saying to yourself, wow thats a large amount of classes and it's true. One man can not teach all the classes or even half of them and still care about the well being of his students. This leads me to my point. Yes our schoo is placing out this huge nation-wide search for Amy's position. But what about Jim Nelson? Are they looking? I havent heard anything. He is on phased retirement. I believe he is only teaching two classes within the next year. Now Amy is gone, is the other person they will find be able to teach the other wildlife courses?
I don't believe the higher ups at Unity realize the impact of what a qualified professor and an under qualified professor can do to a course. I have had several courses where a professor should not have been teaching that course and I did not get what I was supposed to get out of it. I came out of that class with what I walked in with. No new knowledge. Its sad. Thats that saddest thing to me, to take a course and learn nothing? I dont know about other students here but I enjoy learning that's why I came to college. I have a passion for learning new things and its a sad day when someone can ask me "what did you learn in that class?" and my response is "well..nothing."
I'm not done...its still in the works. I'm making a change damn it. Things have to change, I may be leaving but I dont want this place to be a waste to the future generations of wildlife biologists and wildlife rehabilitators.
