I received a telephone call from a former co-worker. We hadn’t spoken in years, and it was nice to catch up. He asked me what I was doing, and I told him that I started my own educational consulting firm, “UNITAS International Education Consultants.” He yelled into the phone, “Unite-us! Hey, you named your company after the football player!” He was a big sports fan. I laughed hysterically and said, “No, UNI-tas not Johnny Unitas the famed quarterback from the 1960s.
When I opened my firm, I thought long and hard about the name. The name should have meaning. It should show strength, power, trustworthiness, and action. I could use my Chinese zodiac sign. A dragon shows strength and power. Yet Dragon Consulting didn’t seem to fit the mission of higher education. What if I use my name? Look at Walmart from founder Sam Walton or Tesla from Nikola Tesla. No, we aren’t a store, a car, or a famed scientist.
I realized that the name had to have meaning for me and one that represents my beliefs. So, one day the word “unity” came to mind. It is not a word that most of us use every day. After mulling that over for a while, I decided that it sounded more like a banking app. Then it came to me. What about a Latin term? Latin was a common language in science and academia, and we use Latin terms every day without thinking about where they come from. Ad hoc, et cetera, per diem. Unitas means unity in Latin.
That is how UNITAS International Education Consultants came to be. To me, it means more than unity and oneness. I believe that education is a uniter. We live on this planet together. We are much more alike than we are different. We are and should believe in UNITAS.
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