Unity Environmental University offers associate’s, bachelor's, and master's degrees focused on environmental science and sustainability, including programs in sustainable horticulture and environmental engineering.
Nestled in the Maine forest, Unity Environmental University has spent over 50 years educating eco-minded scholars. The school, founded in 1965 with just 24 students, has since grown to 10,000 students, both in person and online. Unity prepares students to tackle environmental challenges head-on, with eco-forward approaches to land management, food supply chains, entrepreneurship, and more.
With enrollment soaring by 200% in recent years, Unity has its sights set on an even greater impact: By 2030, they aim to increase enrollment to 50,000 students. To achieve this ambitious vision, Unity is focused on delivering faster support for students, increasing staff efficiency, and removing barriers to enrollment.
Streamlining inquiry responses was one priority. Before, prospective students often waited days — sometimes weeks — for responses due to manual, repetitive forms and multistep processes. Current students faced similar challenges, relying on physical handbooks to navigate questions about tuition, financial aid, or courses. When a student had a question about Unity, every request — whether about the application process or specific course details — went through the same slow process and was treated with the same urgency: submitted via a request for information (RFI) directly on the website, and answered in the order received. Unity recognized that this one-size-fits-all approach wasn’t a fit for the future vision.
The university also identified inefficiencies in managing data. Information spread across multiple systems — PDFs, third-party systems, and legacy platforms — created extra work for recruiters and advisors when working with potential and current students. This slowed responses, increased costs, and made it harder to scale as enrollment grew. Simplifying these processes was essential to supporting their expansion goals without overburdening staff or increasing budgets.
Unity knew that solving these internal processes would help it not only advance enrollment goals but also create a more inclusive process: Unity hopes to attract more first-generation and nontraditional or online-exclusive students, who benefit from immediate support around their work schedules and straightforward access to information on complicated topics like financial aid. By eliminating wait times and making information easier to find, Unity could create a smoother path to enrollment for all students and equip more sustainability leaders across all communities.
Agentforce gives students an always-on, always-available partner for their education journey.
Building personal relationships with every potential and current student is central to Unity Environmental University’s strategy for boosting enrollment. Traditionally, this level of engagement would require expanding staff, increasing headcount, and raising costs. But now, with Agentforce — the new agentic layer on the Salesforce Platform — the university can achieve these goals with their existing staff, augmented by a new digital labor force that meets every student where they are with what they need.
“Instead of traditional forms or even chatbots, our students will soon have the convenience and personalized support of interacting with an autonomous recruitment agent directly on our website,” said Dr. Melik Khoury, President and CEO of Unity Environmental University.
For example, if a student asks, “What sustainability programs are available for someone interested in ecotourism?” Agentforce will analyze the student’s preferences and program data to provide a tailored recommendation, such as the university’s ecotourism program, which explores conservation strategies and sustainable resources to promote ethical travel. It can also schedule virtual info sessions and answer questions about tuition and financial aid.
For current students, Agentforce will offer a new and streamlined experience, securely pulling from Data Cloud to access key details about each student like transcripts, class history, GPA, and financial aid status. This complete view of each student will enable Agentforce to provide tailored academic planning, internship suggestions, and career counseling. For instance, if a biology student expresses interest in protecting endangered species, Agentforce might recommend the master’s program in Wildlife Ecology and Management. In the future, Unity even plans to equip Agentforce to register students for classes. This means students will no longer have to deal with the stress of constantly refreshing their screens, hoping to snag that one class they need before it fills up.
And this is just the beginning. Agentforce learns from each interaction, which means that the more students use it, the better it will get at anticipating their needs and offering ways to help them get the most value from their time at Unity. The university is excited to offer their students an always-on, always-available partner for every step of their education journey — from initial interest to life after graduation. For example, when looking for their first job, Unity grads can ask Agentforce questions like, “What are the Top 5 companies hiring someone with my major in the past three years?” And Agentforce will surface accurate, helpful answers, pulling data from private resources like the university alumni database as well as public platforms like LinkedIn.
Unity reduces advisor workload, speeds up registration, and increases enrollment with unified data.
Unity Environmental University did their homework: They know that great AI starts with great data. Their journey to bring together their student data for greater efficiency and trusted AI results started in 2023, as the school faced a common challenge of fragmented student data spread across multiple systems, including Salesforce, education software provider CAMS, and cloud storage service ODrive. This patchwork of platforms left advisors and staff juggling time-consuming manual processes like course registration and student billing, which limited their ability to scale without hiring additional staff. These inefficiencies drove up operational costs and made it difficult for staff to keep up with student needs.
By implementing Salesforce’s Education Cloud as a centralized student information system and Data Cloud to integrate their many systems, Unity could consolidate all student data into one platform, reducing advisor workload by 25% and making class registration 12 times faster: Students can now register for courses in under 20 seconds. Instead of registrations, staff could focus on strategic tasks like personalized student outreach and program development. Recruiters now save 17 hours per week by automating routine tasks. These changes have helped Unity accommodate a 51% increase in Veterans Affairs (VA) certifications — which includes certification for jobs like a mechanic and therapist, among others — without adding staff.
Now with Data Cloud, unifying all university data, Unity integrates real-time insights from CAMS, Donor Perfect, and Excel among others into decision-making. With a 500% increase in data-driven enrollment decisions — whether the school accepts and enrolls an applicant or not — Unity now relies on accurate, up-to-date dashboards to make quicker, smarter choices.
Agentforce will take all of this efficiency to the next level. Staff will have access to an instant expert on any school- or student-related topic for fast, data-driven decision-making. For example, advisors will instantly be able to access a student’s degree progress and financial aid status. And by automating routine inquiries and tasks, such as scheduling virtual info sessions or addressing common and complex questions with Agentforce, staff will be free to focus on meaningful, high-impact initiatives that require a human touch.
“By integrating Agentforce into our workflows, we can quickly address standard questions like financial aid details or class registration while freeing our team to engage more deeply with students,” said Dr. Khoury. “This balanced approach ensures that every conversation is more meaningful, as some learners can rely solely on Agentforce for immediate answers, while others benefit from the combined efforts of both Agentforce and our dedicated staff.”
With a fully connected Salesforce ecosystem, Unity has helped its staff work more efficiently, enhanced student experiences, and paved the way to achieving its enrollment growth goals — all while keeping costs in check.
Agentforce will empower students with accessible, multilingual enrollment support.
Not only will Unity's enrollment be more scalable, it will also be more inclusive. Applying to college can be overwhelming for anyone — piles of paperwork, confusing forms, and unclear scholarship requirements. It's not surprising that 25% of all students who start the application process never finish. Agentforce will change that by removing common roadblocks like long wait times, unclear instructions, and hard-to-find financial aid details, making the process faster and simpler from start to finish.
For applicants who speak English as a second language, Agentforce eliminates confusion and uncertainty by providing instant, accurate guidance. Soon, Agentforce will offer support in Spanish, German, and Portuguese, making higher education more accessible to an even wider range of students.
Instead of prospective students submitting forms and waiting weeks for a response, Agentforce will immediately collect key details like educational background, academic interests, and financial aid eligibility. This will kick off a guided process, ensuring all necessary information is submitted correctly for quicker admissions decisions. Applicants can expect to hear back within 48 hours — much faster than the typical eight-week wait at most universities.
“We can’t wait to start utilizing Agentforce to completely reimagine our recruitment and enrollment processes,” said Dr. Khoury.
Agentforce will build on Unity’s impressive results with the Salesforce Platform thus far. From 2023 to 2024, bachelor’s program enrollments increased by 9%, while master’s program enrollments rose by 41%. The university also expects a reduction in acquisition costs by $800 per student while laying the groundwork to expand its student body from 10,000 to 50,000. They even reduced student melt rates, or the rate of students registering for classes who don’t actually start the program, by 10 percentage points, improving retention during critical recruitment cycles.
Unity Environmental University is leveraging Salesforce’s Agentforce to expand our support beyond routine inquiries, allowing our employees to focus on learners who need more personalized guidance.
Dr. Melik KhouryPresident & CEO, Unity Environmental University
Agentforce will autonomously kick off critical processes and personalize every student interaction. With Agentforce using unified data and metadata in Data Cloud – like web engagement, enrollment history, and prior interactions – with specific industry applications in Education Cloud, Unity can deliver proactive support to more students, and more types of students, to build the next generation of ecopreneurs and sustainability champions. Unlike other solutions, the Salesforce Platform uniquely combines agentic AI with flexibility, security, scalability, and purpose-built needs for education, allowing Unity to futureproof their infrastructure, keep operational costs low, and deliver an experience that enhances their inclusive, modern education environment.
Unity’s partnership with Salesforce gives them a transformative edge, combining innovation with a commitment to sustainability that aligns well with the university’s values. With Salesforce, Unity isn’t just offering a high-quality education — they're equipping the next generation to build a better, more sustainable world.
