in the news

A Higher Purpose: Treehouse School Brings Students Back to the Land

by Billy Baker - June 20, 2021 | Georgetown, ME

As they do every morning, the 22 students at Seguinland Institute left their phones in their rooms and went for a silent walk through the woods and along the river for 15 minutes before arriving at the giant treehouse classroom known as “the gathering space.” There they spent an hour doing mindfulness exercises before embarking on their coursework, which changes each day but always involves one overarching question: What constitutes a “good life”? The school is called Seguinland Institute—a vision brought to life on a picturesque stretch of riverfront in this midcoast Maine village.[…] Anya Brown of Westford, MA was one of those students. After graduating from Lawrence Academy, she was on her way to Holy Cross last fall until the school announced it was going remote. That night, she somehow googled her way to Seguinland and asked her parents if she could defer college. It was, she said, the best decision she’s ever made." […] It was a place where I felt connected [says Brown] and like I could become the best version of myself.” Brown loved it so much that she returned this spring for The Good Life May Term. […]

The full article, linked here, originally appeared on the front cover of the Boston Sunday Globe.

At Georgetown’s Seguinland Institute, students find connection — and a path to ‘the good life’

by Bisi Cameron Yee - September 30, 2025 | Georgetown, ME

Georgetown’s Seguinland Institute, at 16 years old, is coming of age with a new generation of young people who are searching for a less traditional path after high school.

Many of them are crossing a footbridge over the Back River to find what they’re looking for in the heart of the institute’s 60-acre campus.

“Gap year” programs like those offered at Seguinland provide recent graduates an alternative transition from high school to college. They promise opportunities to build skills, foster self-reliance and develop friendships through new experiences. For some, a gap year is a welcome pause before an uncertain future.

“We think of gap years as intentional, deliberate attempts to inhabit transitional spaces in life,” said Philip Francis, who co-founded the institute in 2009 and serves as its director.

Francis, who has a doctorate in religion from the Harvard School of Divinity, drew inspiration from philosophers and poets such as Henry David Thoreau, William James, and Wendell Berry when he conceived of his “immersive study program in the woods.”

Read the full article here.

Colleges need an experiential learning revolution

by Eric Schwartz - November 1, 2025 | Boston, MA

AMERICA IS FALLING out of love with college, and it’s not hard to see why. 

First, colleges are not doing enough to build purpose, confidence, agency, and maturity. Colleges are not the cause of growing anxiety and a declining sense of purpose among young people; but, faced with the reality of these trends, colleges have not changed their models nearly enough to help students build purpose, confidence, agency, and maturity. 

Second, colleges are not doing enough to build “durable” or “transferable” skills and the networks and experiences students need to transition successfully from high school to 21st century careers that pay good wages…

What are some new college models that could point the way forward – and that could address the three crises of purpose, skills, and cost?

…Colleges built around mission and purpose can build from an emerging network of “microcolleges” such as Deep Springs College in Nevada, Thoreau College in Wisconsin, and the Seguinland Institute in Maine, all supported by Springboard, a nonprofit designed to research and support small and purpose-driven learning communities. 

Read the full article here.

Alumni Spotlight: Marsha Dunn ’93

Marsha Dunn, co-founder of the Seguinland Institute in Georgetown, ME, is working to foster holistic education and create a space for young people to think about what it means to live a good life individually and collectively.

For over 20 years, Marsha Dunn ’93 has been on a path of sharing creativity to help others in their own internal journeys. Her multidisciplinary career as an artist, designer, business owner, entrepreneur, and graphic facilitator has coalesced into her current role as Co-Founder and Creative Director of the nonprofit Seguinland Institute, an award-winning gap year program in the coastal woodlands of Georgetown, Maine. The Institute, founded in 2016, provides a space for 18-22 year olds to come together to foster community, connect with the natural world, and consider what it means to live a good life, all while earning college credit.

Marsha attended Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School from kindergarten through Grade 10 before finishing high school in Rhode Island and attending Brown University. In all her endeavors, she says the sense of community and value of creativity that surrounded her at HVS has stayed with her. For much of her career, she has worked as a graphic facilitator, running her own studio and working with organizations including the United Nations, New England Aquarium, and MIT. As a graphic facilitator, she used visuals as a means of deepening learning and collaboration in a group.

“The approach I was trained in was very much about the power of using visuals in facilitation to connect and engage a group, but not necessarily about teaching people how to build their own community through creativity,” Marsha says. “I started exploring, along with some other colleagues, ways to make teaching more integral to our work and we found it very meaningful.”

Read the full article here.