The best thing about our programs? The students who are drawn to them! We attract a diverse range of students who share a few things in common: they are looking for a multifaceted program that will engage their whole person: body, mind and soul. They are looking for a program with depth and authenticity. Many of them feel a bit burned out by traditional academics, but they want to keep learning, growing, creating and experiencing new things. Our students are looking to build meaningful relationships with quality and depth.

About 70% of our students come to Seguinland as part of a traditional gap year between high school and college (age 18-19). About 30% of our students have taken 1-2 years of college (age 19-20). This latter group is often in the process of transferring to a new college. Within any given cohort there are generally a few students who are seeking alternatives to college. 

We currently have alums at the following colleges: UNC, NYU, UVM, Harvard, College of the Atlantic, Princeton, Berea, Dartmouth, Temple, Colorado, Brown, Bowdoin, Duke, Holy Cross, Illinois State, Bates, George Washington, Middlebury, Grinnell, Haverford, Pomona, Scripps, Bard, Richmond, Penn State, Santa Clara and many more.

Our alums go on to very different colleges and careers. We currently have alums at Harvard, College of the Atlantic, Princeton, Berea, Dartmouth, Temple, Colorado, Brown, UNC, Bowdoin, UVM, Duke, Holy Cross, Illinois State, Bates, George Washington, Middlebury, Grinnell, Haverford, Pomona, Scripps, Bard, Richmond, Penn State, NYU, Santa Clara and many more. We have alums who are working in environmental engineering, film, farming, food, education, land management, outdoor recreation, law, medicine, etc. 

Many of our alums return for a second or third program at Seguinland. All alums are welcome to attend our annual reunion on campus. We enjoy staying connected to our alums throughout their college years—and beyond. Our alums are the best. Please see their testimonials.

We create an environment in which students can think deeply about questions of the good life and begin to discern their own calling: “...the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet,” in the words of Frederick Buechner.

We encourage students to connect to nature as a source of grounding, contemplation, insight and joy. Students live on campus here in the coastal woodlands of Maine. They learn to identify trees and plants, hike the preserves, and camp on the Maine Island Trail. Students slow down, sync up with nature and come to recognize their reciprocity with the earth.

Our programs are saturated with ideas to live by. We create a retreat-like setting, alive with creative thinking, good books & lively discussion. Our professors guide students through reflective exercises, facilitated conversations & immersive experiences in a non-ideological, non-dogmatic way.

All courses at Seguinland Institute bear college credit through our formal agreement with the University of Maine at Farmington, where Institute Founder/Director, Philip Francis, was Associate Professor of Philosophy & Religion. Students at Seguinland Institute receive a transcript from the University of Maine at Farmington by which they can transfer course credit to the college of their choice.

We try to create a context in which students can cultivate the inner resources necessary for personal and community-oriented thriving. This includes daily mindfulness practice: the development of skills for calming and focusing the mind, knitting together fractured attention spans, and learning to sit with mystery.

Creativity is the lifeblood of human thriving–for individuals and communities. Too many believe that creativity is the domain of the select few, “the artists”. We create space for all students to explore and expand their innate capacities for creative expression.

Our campus is on the site of an old family homestead. In this spirit, we grow some of our own food and try “to live sanely and simply in a troubled world,” to quote Helen & Scott Nearing. We encourage students to grapple with the interconnections between the good life and the food life, as so many pressing issues of our time are food-related: climate change, health, inequality.

Questions of the good life for one are inseparable from questions of the good life for all. We encourage our students to recognize that their own well-being is tied up with that of everyone else’s. We seek to instill in our students the skills to build strong and inclusive communities in the 21st Century.