Hartford, Conn., October 25, 2006—Trinity College has begun a search for a distinguished scholar to lead a new, endowed center committed to urban and global studies. The Center will bring together Trinity’s urban academic programs in Hartford and abroad—experiences that will build an understanding of people, cultures, political systems, and intellectual disciplines through hands-on opportunities in and out of the classroom.

A central task for the new dean will be to integrate the three interlocking intellectual spheres inhabited by Trinity students: the classroom, the city, and the world. The new dean will provide intellectual leadership by establishing curricular connections between urban studies and international studies and link more closely academic programs to the myriad forms of experiential learning that the campus now undertakes here and abroad.

In summarizing the College’s search, Dean of Faculty, Vice President for Academic Affairs, and the G. Keith Funston Professor of American Literature and American Studies at Trinity College, Rena Fraden notes, “We are searching for an accomplished academic who is engaged with urban matters, capacious enough to relate to the breadth of disciplinary interests that coalesce around urban and global studies, and a deft administrator with the ability to work not only with academics but the community.” She points out that the College’s aim is for the Center to bring together in one place the array of programs that already exist at Trinity, creating the opportunity for more collaborations and more satisfying connections between places, ideas, and experience.

Trinity College, founded in 1823, is a highly selective, independent liberal arts college. It enrolls 2000 full-time undergraduates, and its faculty includes approximately 180 members with continuing appointments. Faculty are expected to be both high-quality teachers and productive scholars. The College offers 27 departmental majors and eight majors in interdisciplinary programs; it has a campus in Rome and operates seven global learning sites in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, and South America. In recognition of the central importance of the Center and its purview, the College has established a $15 million endowment goal for the Center and its activities as a key element of its most recently launched fundraising campaign. More information about the position can be found at /academics/deanoffaculty/raetherprofessor/.