“A Small Urban College with a Wide Global Reach”
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| President Jimmy Jones, Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez, Dr. Xiangming Chen |
October 25, 2007—Hartford, Conn.— With more of the world population flocking to urban centers each and every day and the city of Hartford experiencing both revival and challenges, Trinity College inaugurated its Center for Urban and Global Studies last week, creating the first academic center at a U.S. liberal arts college with an integrated urban-global theme and focus.
The highlight of the half-day event was a keynote speech by Saskia Sassen, the Lynd Professor of Sociology and a Member of the Committee on Global Thought oat Columbia University and the author of several books and articles on globalization. Sassen, noting that cities – even those the size of Hartford – are at the vortex of the risks and challenges facing the world today, spoke to a standing-room-only crowd in the Washington Room in Mather Hall.
Sassen has recently completed for UNESCO a five-year project on sustainable human settlement for which she set up a network of researchers and activists in more than 30 countries. A world’s leading scholar on globalization and cities, Sassen’s books have been translated into 16 languages.
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| Saskia Sassen, Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University |
Among the guests were members of Trinity’s Board of Trustees, President James F. Jones. Jr., and Dr. Xiangming Chen, director of the Center and the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of Sociology and International Studies. Dr. Chen was recruited from the University of Illinois at Chicago and will oversee a Center that will house and develop Trinity’s urban and global programs.
In his remarks, Dr. Chen referred to Trinity as “a small urban college with a wide global reach.” That was evident in several of the lectures and presentations by members of Trinity’s faculty – programs that create links between the teaching-research-service triangle and the Triangle of the classroom, the city of Hartford, and the world.
Six urban and global programs on campus -- the Office of Community Relations, the Office of Urban Academic Engagement, the Internship Office, the Office of International Programs, the Hartford Studies Project and Trinfo.Cafe – will now be consolidated under the Center, which was created, in part, by a grant from the Mellon Foundation and is located at 70 Vernon Street.
President Jones kicked off the afternoon’s events with a short speech in which he noted that the new Center will help prepare Trinity’s undergraduates for “global citizenry” by creating links from its Hartford campus to cities around the world.
President Jones was followed by Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez, a Trinity graduate, who praised the creation of the Center, adding that he’s “proud that Hartford continues to serve as an international classroom.”
The presentations ranged from a demonstration of Trinity’s firefighting robots to demographic mapping of Greater Hartford neighborhoods to a visual display of Trinity students teaching dance to Hartford students.
A key goal of the Center will be to find ways to bring the faculty and students interested in Hartford-based teaching and research initiatives closer together to work with government agencies, the private sector and community organizations in Greater Hartford to tackle some of the challenges faced by cities locally, regionally and globally.