BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 27, 2020
Dozens of Unity College alumni and students this week called for President Melik Peter Khoury to resign — even as the school touted unprecedented growth and record enrollment. A letter, signed by 61 people, was a response to the private liberal arts school’s major directional shift, announced earlier this month when the president said Unity would permanently move from its traditional campus learning model toward a hybrid and distance learning one. The school was reeling from a 33-percent decline in its four-year residential program this fall and an ensuing $12 to $14 million shortfall, officials said. They explained that was why the college also abruptly laid off or furloughed more than 50 faculty and staff members — nearly 30 percent of its workforce — and why the board of trustees authorized school officials to explore selling its 240-acre main campus in Unity.