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.”
In building the curriculum, Francis, along with wife and co-founder Marsha Dunn, consulted a number of texts, including a 1954 homesteading classic: “Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World,” by Helen and Scott Nearing.
Every class, outing or volunteer opportunity was developed to help Seguinland students answer one question: “What does it mean to live a good life?”
Community through creativity
As the institute’s creative director, Dunn uses her extensive experience building presentations for Fortune 500 companies and national nonprofits to encourage students to embrace their creative sides.
“What we’re trying to explore here is what do you learn — about yourself and others and the world around you — by engaging in the process of making things,” she said. “How does creativity connect to your sense of identity? How does making things in concert with other people foster connection?”
Helping students learn how to build a community is at the core of Seguinland’s identity. From the first day on campus, students work together toward common goals, whether cooking a meal, designing an art installation or summiting a mountain. They learn collaboration and compromise. They learn self-governance. They learn how to participate in a society — a critical skill they can take into their future.
“This isn’t a program you just show up to that’s pre-canned and handed to you at the door,” Francis said. “We are going to create something original — a program that’s never been run like this before. And they respond to that. They come alive.”
The use of technology is limited. Art classes are analog, more focused on process than end result. Texts are bound books. And cellphones are off-limits on campus.
‘On the edge of knowing’
Without the constant demands of technology, a semester at Seguinland can be transformative.
“I could cry thinking about how this place affected me,” said Keilah Visscher, a Michigander who spent two full semesters and 2025’s May term at Seguinland. “It changed my whole life. As much as you can at 18 or 19, I figured out who I was.”
Maezie Hale, who lives in Freeport, is at the beginning of a similar journey. “I have moved schools a lot and finding community has not been easy to do,” she said.
After spending a semester at a college in the Southwest and deciding it wasn’t the right fit, Hale came to Seguinland to figure out what was next.
“I am on the edge of knowing,” she said. “I feel like I’m very close.”
At Seguinland, food is a powerful catalyst for community. Marcos Vinicius Carlos Barbosa Dantas, a Brazilian student known as Vinnie, blossomed in the cookhouse, sharing a recipe for cheese bread from his home country.
“Every single part of Brazil knows it,” Dantas said. “It’s a food that connects the whole country.”
Nikolas Morrone, who came to Seguinland from Charlotte, North Carolina, described himself as “a bit quiet and shy,” but said the welcome he experienced at the institute brought him out of his shell.
“I’m not, like, a completely different person,” he said. “But there’s a new part in me that almost wants to be engaged and active and in the community. It’s just a new experience for me. I wouldn’t have traded this for the world.”
Yangtze Yang described her educational experience in China as strict, more focused on math, science and test scores than on individual expression.
As an international student, she was nervous about coming to America, but at Seguinland, she found connections beyond language and nationality. And “proof there’s still art and poetry in this world.”
“This kind of education style makes me feel like I’m not being taught, I’m just learning,” she said. “No students and teachers — just friends and friends.”
Global reputation, local focus
The institute has a 99.4% alumni approval rating, according to the organization Go Overseas, which has recognized Seguinland as a top gap year destination. Seguinland is one of just 24 international programs accredited by the Gap Year Association.
Tuition and term lengths vary — from about $5,000 to $15,000 and from three to 10 weeks, respectively.
Approximately 20% of students receive full or partial scholarships, according to the institute. Dunn said Seguinland gave out approximately $75,000 in scholarships last year.
Classes are small by design. Francis said the institute consistently gets more applicants than it can accept.
Students come from across the U.S. and around the world, but Francis and Dunn want to increase accessibility for students in their home state by developing strong relationships with local high schools and educators.
In addition, they are working to expand the institute’s role in Georgetown and the Midcoast.
A growing internship program places Seguinland alumni with businesses and nonprofits throughout the region. The program introduces a younger demographic into aging communities with the hope that some will choose to stay.
Signature events each semester, such as the Foraged Feast, the Story Sharing Dinner, and the Good Life Lecture, invite the outside world to join students inside a treehouse classroom for conversation and celebration.
The capstone of the May term is the Mad Farmer Award Ceremony, now in its third year. As part of their experiential learning, students work with and honor a local farmer who embodies the principles of rebellious environmentalism that infuse Wendell Berry’s “Mad Farmer” poems.
New summer programming is geared toward introducing the institute to an even wider audience. In July, Art & Oysters presented fresh work by three New England artists. In August, The Good Life Through the Lifespan gave nonstudents the opportunity to sample an array of Seguinland experiences in a single afternoon.
The institute also hosts writers retreats and artist residencies in partnership with outside organizations, including the Chocolate Church Arts Center in Bath and The Parsonage, a modern art gallery in Searsport.
And there are plans for a second Georgetown campus.
“We’re growing on a lot of fronts,” Dunn said.
Seeing ‘the whole sky’
For now, it’s in tight-knit cohorts of around 24 students per semester where everything aligns in service to a generation on the cusp of change.
Sophia Slegar and Colette Drane met during the fall term of 2022 and became best friends, even attending the University of Vermont together. They returned for the May term as staff members.
“We’re kind of like Seguinland Institute poster children,” Slegar said.
For Drane, Seguinland represents a buffer against the disconnection she sees in her peers.
“People our age are not finding community,” she said, citing disruptions to social circles like the end of high school sports or leaving a hometown church to attend college. “They’re not in the collective community their family gave them when they were younger.”
She sees Seguinland as a space where young people can, with the support of their cohort and the guidance of the institute’s staff, transition from a time of reliance to a time of independence.
Alexandra Irvine spent a gap year at Seguinland in 2023 and returned for the May term this year.
She likes to gather with her fellow students after the evening meal on the docks or the footbridge. They lie on their backs, gazing upward, sometimes in conversation, sometimes in silence.
“You can just see the stars really well,” Irvine said. “You’ve got the whole sky.”
