Unity is a group on Millikin’s campus who every year give the incoming freshmen a performance known as a monologue, which depicts different types of students that can be found at Millikin. The idea behind this presentation is to give the incoming freshmen a presentation that would show them how there are others here at Millikin who are going through similar problems. As a freshmen watching this presentation I found myself connected with more than one of the speakers and I found it very powerful, and moving.

We fast forward from the presentation that was held during first week to September 17th, to when Unity holds a monologue presentation for those who would like to watch it again and upperclassmen. The room was a simple classroom located in our beloved Shilling Hall which made it so much more intimate. The audience had a chance to really connect with the speakers because we were all just sitting there giving our undivided attentions to the speakers.

The monologues were powerful and full of topics students and anyone in general can relate to. The performance couldn’t have been longer than forty minutes but they covered topics such as body type issues, eating disorder struggles, what it’s like to be a women, depression, being from out of state, and racial issues. Unity is a group of 6 students who apply, get interviewed, train, and put together these monologues. Audrey Allen, a junior Psychology major, Theatre and Criminal Justice minor at Millikin joined unity in the spring of her freshmen year and has been apart of it ever since. Audrey states, when asked why she had the urge to join Unity “I joined because I was really moved by the performance I viewed my Freshmen year and I wanted to be apart of an organization that makes a difference on Millikin’s campus”.

Joining a paraprofessional program such as Unity may not only benefit your relationship with others but the doors a program such as Unity could open for you would be endless.

“I learned a lot about diversity on Millikin’s campus and has helped me discover who I am as a person” Audrey said.

Unity is a great opportunity that anyone can apply to, because emails get sent out to anyone interested in becoming apart of the group. Unity opened the floor for questions at the end of their performance and the idea of going on tour was brought up.

The messages the monologues hold are powerful and everyone should be able to enjoy them and learn from them. Taking the monologues and performing them for students from different schools would be powerful because the messages are universal there is at least one person on that stage that every student can connect to in one way or another. Unity also asked the audience to join them in a game known as cross the line, but their twist to it is to stand in a circle. The idea was that there would be someone who states a issue or situation and if you ever went through it or can relate to it you would step into the circle. This activity gave the audience a better opportunity to open up and get involved and showed us that there are others going through the same situations. It was a wonderful event and Unity is a wonderful group.