Press Release Issued May 16, 1998

Hartford, Conn., May 16, 1998 -- On a day marking its 175th anniversary, Trinity College has announced a strategic plan that will create unique educational linkages connecting the College, the city of Hartford, and cities around the world. At the same time, the plan calls for innovative programs, including a "tutorial college" option for sophomores, that will strengthen the College’s liberal arts core and emphasize a mode of instruction characterized by close student-faculty interaction and collaboration, both in the classroom and in intellectual pursuits outside the classroom.

"We will use every advantage our city location offers to provide a distinctive liberal arts education to Trinity students," said Trinity President Evan S. Dobelle in unveiling the College’s academic vision for the future. "We will integrate the College’s bold neighborhood revitalization initiative -- which has garnered widespread attention as a model for the nation -- with the process of academic change, to the mutual benefit of students and our neighbors. And we will expand curricular emphasis on international issues and the powerful forces of global change so that Trinity graduates will thrive as ‘citizens of the world.’"

"Most importantly, we must do these things in ways that reinforce our core commitment to the essential values of a liberal arts education. Our challenge is to demonstrate the distinctiveness of the liberal arts approach and demonstrate effectively its enduring relevance and value in a rapidly changing world," said Dobelle.

In a decisive move to enhance the liberal arts core at Trinity in a way that will both distinguish the College and enrich the educational experience of its undergraduates, Trinity announced plans for reforming its general-education curriculum for the critical first two years of college.

Planning is underway for an experimental tutorial college that will initially enroll 40 to 50 sophomores a year. Participating faculty and students will explore fundamental liberal arts issues and materials through one-on-one and small-group tutorials. The goal is for students to acquire competence in a variety of general-education areas which the faculty identifies as especially significant -- competence they will demonstrate through tests, papers, and a year-end comprehensive examination. Noting that no other top U.S. liberal arts college offers such an option, President Dobelle said that the "tutorial college, partly inspired by the tutorial system at Oxford and Cambridge in England, has exceptional potential to engage students and faculty in intensive intellectual exchanges about matters of timeless importance. Though it will initially be available only to selected undergraduates, we hope ultimately to open the tutorial college to all interested sophomores."

The faculty also plans to mount an array of "gateway to the liberal arts" programs, each of which will examine an important topic or theme through a coordinated, multidisciplinary sequence of courses taken during the first two years. The gateway programs will give sharper focus and coherence to general education and bring students with shared interests together in close-knit "communities of learning." The first new program of this type, centered on the study of the creative arts, has just been approved and is expected to begin operation in the fall of 1999. It will feature special seminars on such topics as "the artist and society" and "art and ideas," plus an "Artists' Colloquium," a forum for discussion of local arts events and interaction between students and Hartford-based artists.

"A distinctive ‘world-cities’ emphasis in Trinity’s curricular and co-curricular offerings will build on the diverse urban-centered and international initiatives already underway at Trinity," noted Dobelle in describing the College’s concept of "liberal arts with a difference." "And Trinity’s tremendous strength in information technology will enable us to create innovative and extensive linkages that enhance teaching, learning, and scholarship in original and exciting ways -- on campus and off."

A cornerstone of the plan is a series of initiatives that provide students stimulating opportunities to apply their learning and skills to real-world problems and challenges by working directly with community and city organizations. "We see great opportunities to engage the immediate community and the city as a whole in constructive, mutually advantageous ways that were barely imaginable as recently as five years ago," said Dobelle. "Trinity will promote learning on both sides of the line that traditionally separates campus from community -- a line that will become increasingly indistinct."

One exemplary urban learning program is a Health Studies Fellowship Program, originated by Trinity’s neuroscience faculty. It will offer science-oriented undergraduates the opportunity to enroll concurrently in an academic internship at any one of the medical centers in Trinity’s neighborhood(Hartford Hospital, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, and the Institute of Living), in a physician-led weekly colloquium, and in a special integrating seminar taught on campus.

"The city-centered learning engagements that already distinguish Trinity reflect the fact that our urban location provides an extraordinarily fertile setting for liberal learning," said Dobelle. "And the College’s connections to sites around the world will enable us to meet the challenge of a global age by extending our educational reach beyond national borders. We are uniquely positioned to create an extended community of learning -- one that is at once urban and global," according to Dobelle.

Trinity’s global emphasis will be exemplified in several complementary initiatives, the centerpiece of which will be a network of global learning sites to provide foreign study opportunities with a distinctive Trinity stamp on them. A pilot program is currently underway in Cape Town, South Africa. The plan calls for the establishment of two or more global learning sites each year for the next five years. In addition to the one in Cape Town, other pilot programs are being developed for Port-of-Spain, Beijing, Jerusalem, and Dublin. Possible future locations under investigation include St. Petersburg, Maastricht, Santiago, San Juan, New Delhi, Cairo, Istanbul, Saigon, and Buenos Aires. For 26 years, Trinity has operated a campus in Rome, and the College just recently announced plans for a San Francisco campus, with classes scheduled to begin in spring semester 1999.

"We are committed to providing students an off-campus learning experience that is demanding and integrated into their overall Trinity education. Every Trinity global learning site will reflect a commitment to academic rigor, engaged learning, and civic responsibility. Internship experience, as well as mandatory community service in the indigenous community, will be built into the program at each global site," according to Dobelle.

Typically, the sites will be centered on a special seminar taught by a well-qualified local academic appointed by the College. In addition to the seminar, students will take elective courses at a local university. Students at a global site will be connected via information technology to the Hartford campus and will also exchange ideas and experiences with students at other global sites through an electronic global forum and "global cyber seminars" on a specially designated global challenge.

Other highlights of the Trinity College strategic plan, approved today by the Board of Trustees, include:

· Establishment of new academic centers, on the model of Trinity’s successful Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life and the recently launched Center for Collaborative Teaching and Research, that will

broadly and effectively engage undergraduates in serious, rigorous intellectual work and creatively expand opportunities for faculty and students to work collaboratively outside the classroom.

· A Global Scholars Program that each year brings to campus an internationally acclaimed scholar who will work with faculty and students in intellectual pursuits with a global emphasis; and an intensive review of the international studies curriculum to adapt it for the post-Cold War, global age.

· Expanded levels of support for student-faculty research projects in all departments and programs, making such collaboration a hallmark of the Trinity educational experience.

· The hiring of new faculty to support key objectives such as greater diversity within the faculty and greater curricular depth in areas of current strength and new emphasis, notably urban and global.

· Significant increase in the investment of College resources, particularly in financial aid, to support the recruitment and retention of diverse, highly motivated, and successful students.

· Continued support for initiatives, such as the Learning Technology Project, which strengthen Trinity’s information technology infrastructure and support new modes of teaching and learning, as well as administrative efficiency.

· State-of-the art career services reflecting Trinity’s commitment to excellence in the liberal arts while providing avenues for students to achieve their educational, social, and professional goals.

· New programs to expand experiential learning opportunities uniquely available to Trinity students because of the College’s capital city location, such as academically rigorous liberal arts internships and paid summer internships tied to field of study at Trinity and post-graduate career aspirations.

· Initiatives -- such as strengthening the College’s Office of Multicultural Affairs and a commitment to affirmative action in hiring and recruitment -- that will sustain a climate that respects difference and values diversity, defined in a way that is broad and inclusive.

· An ongoing process of performance assessment geared to Trinity’s mission and strategic objectives, and development of an incentive program to encourage and reward efficiencies, savings, and qualitative improvement in both administrative and academic affairs.

· A $95-million campus renewal plan, phase I (to be completed by 2002) of which includes a $12-million project to renovate the library and merge it with the computing center to create a state-of-the-art learning resource center, and the expansion and renovation of the performing arts center.