Compiled by Peter J. Knapp ’65, College Archivist, with the assistance of Anne H. Knapp, M’76
1823 The Connecticut General Assembly grants a charter to Washington College, later known as Trinity College. It becomes the second college in Connecticut, the 13th in New England, and the 61st in the nation. Although many of the founders are Episcopalians, the charter stipulates that the College is to be a non-sectarian institution.
1824 The Trustees acquire a 14-acre site in downtown Hartford for the campus. It later becomes the site of the State Capitol building.
1825 The College completes construction of its first two buildings: Seabury Hall, an academic facility containing lecture rooms, a library, a natural history museum, and a chapel; and Jarvis Hall, a dormitory. A botanical garden and greenhouse added in 1826 serve to underscore the importance of the sciences in the curriculum.
1826 Student expenses are: $11 per term for tuition; $3.50 per term for room rent; $1 per term for the use of the library; and $2 per term for incidental expenses, including room sweeping, bell ringing, and fuel for lecture rooms.
1827 At the first Commencement, Trinity confers 10 undergraduate degrees and three honorary degrees.
1845 The Trustees successfully petition the Connecticut General Assembly for a change of the institution’s name from Washington College to Trinity College. This prevents confusion with four other “Washington Colleges” located, respectively, in Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. The new name also reflects the influence of the Church of England’s Oxford Movement among High Churchmen in the Episcopal Church of America, some of whom are Trinity trustees.
John Brocklesby, Seabury Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, establishes at Trinity the Beta of Connecticut Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. It is the eighth chapter to be chartered in the United States.
The College completes construction of Brownell Hall, a second dormitory.
1851 Edward B. Hughes of New Haven, a freshman, brings the first ivy plantings to the campus in the fall of 1851. Succeeding classes also plant ivies, and by 1872 they cover the walls of the dormitories. The ivies are thought to be the inspiration for the name of the undergraduate yearbook, The Trinity Ivy, which first appears in 1873.
1857 The unique tradition of the “Lemon Squeezer” begins when the Class of 1857 presents to the Class of 1859 a large mock lemon squeezer just before Commencement. The squeezer is a prize the graduating class awards to a rising class “whose aggregate excellence in scholarship, moral character and the qualities requisite to popularity is the highest.” The class receiving the squeezer is expected to pass it on in turn. Since that time the saga of the lemon squeezer has been replete with celebrated incidents of unorthodox transfers.
1868 Students adopt dark green and white as the colors for sports uniforms. By 1883, convinced that these colors represent the Trinity of the past, are no longer a pleasing combination, and fade and soil too easily, the student body adopts new colors of dark blue and old gold.
1872 The Trustees accept the City of Hartford’s offer to purchase the campus as the site for a permanent State Capitol building. This results in the College’s relocation to the Rocky Ridge or Summit Campus in 1878.
1877 Students organize the first College quartet. Other small vocal groups succeed it, including the Pipes in 1938 as well as coed and women’s groups after 1969.
1878 Built to the designs of William Burges, a leading English architect, as modified for construction by Francis Kimball, the American supervising architect, Seabury and Jarvis Halls on the Summit Campus are ready for occupancy in the fall. Seabury contains lecture rooms, faculty offices, a library, a museum, and a chapel. Jarvis Hall, a dormitory, has faculty apartments in its towers. Northam Towers, a connecting dormitory, is begun in 1881 and completed in 1883.
1881 The Trustees authorize the planting of elm trees on the Quad parallel to Seabury and Jarvis. Upon the completion of Northam Towers, elms are planted in rows running east from Northam toward Broad Street to form a border for a carriage drive then being considered. When this idea is abandoned, the statue of Bishop Brownell is placed in line with Northam between the rows of plantings.
1882 In his senior year, Augustus P. Burgwin ’82 sets the words for ‘Neath the Elms of Our Old Trinity to the tune of an old spiritual and it is quickly adopted as Trinity’s alma mater.
In December, the College achieves international distinction when a team of astronomers from Imperial Germany visits the campus to observe the Transit of Venus, a celestial phenomenon occurring only twice in the 19th century.
Trinity is one of a small number of sites selected worldwide as a point for observation, the elevation and geographical coordinates of the campus making it ideal for determining the sun’s parallax, essential for calculating the earth’s distance from the sun.
1883 In April, Trinity students join representatives from Amherst, Brown, and Yale to form the Intercollegiate Lawn Tennis Association.
1884 The College introduces a system of course electives.
1886 Trinity becomes a charter member of the New England Intercollegiate Athletic Association. Two years later it joins the American Intercollegiate Baseball Association.
1899 While referring to college mascots such as the Princeton tiger and the Yale bulldog in an address at a spring dinner of the Princeton Alumni Association of Pittsburgh, Judge Joseph Buffington ’75 introduces his creation, the Trinity bantam. The student body soon adopts the bantam as a symbol of Trinity’s prowess in intercollegiate athletics.
1900 Irving Knott Baxter ’99 becomes the first from Trinity to participate in the Olympics. He wins the high jump and the pole vault in the Olympic Games at Paris, the second Olympiad in modern times, and establishes new Olympic records. Sixty years later, Alex Guild ’61 competes in the 1960 Olympics as a member of the U.S. men’s soccer team, and in 1964 and 1968, Robert M. Blum ’50 is a member of the U.S. men’s fencing team. At the 2000 Olympics, Christine Smith Collins ’91 wins the bronze medal in the women’s lightweight double sculls race.
1904 The inaugural issue of the Trinity Tripod, the campus newspaper, appears in September.
1907 Sophomores for the first time require freshmen to wear a beanie (cap). It becomes an annual tradition until its demise with the introduction of coeducation in 1969.
1911 Miss Caroline Hewins, Librarian of the Hartford Public Library, becomes the first woman to receive a degree from the College. At Commencement the Trustees confer on her an honorary M.A. degree.
The football team enjoys its first undefeated season. In 2005, Trinity completes its eighth undefeated, untied season, which is also its unprecedented third consecutive undefeated, untied season.
1914 The completion of Williams Memorial, which contains administrative offices and the library, marks the last of four buildings constructed on campus since the Long Walk’s completion in 1883. Demolished in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the other structures include Alumni Hall Gymnasium, Jarvis Scientific Laboratory, and Boardman Hall of Natural History. Almost two decades will ensue before a major expansion of Trinity’s facilities begins in the 1930s.
1915 The aeronautical pioneer, Orville Wright, the first to fly a motor-driven, heavier-than-air machine in sustained flight, receives an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Trinity.
1918 At Commencement the College confers an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on former U. S. President Theodore Roosevelt.
1923 The College observes the centennial of its founding.
1930 Anne L. Gilligan and Dorothy M. McVay, two high school teachers from the Hartford Public School system, become the first women to earn degrees in course from the College, both receiving master’s degrees at Commencement.
1931 The Rev. Dr. Remsen B. Ogilby, Trinity’s 12th president, inaugurates a period of significant expansion of the College’s physical plant, and Trowbridge Pool/Squash Facility, Cook Dormitory, and Cook Commons (now Hamlin Hall) are completed. One year later the Chapel is consecrated for use, and in the mid-1930s, a new chemistry building is constructed. The additions of Goodwin-Woodward Dormitory and Ogilby Hall in the early 1940s help accommodate a student body that exceeds 500 for the first time in 1938.
1943 Trinity becomes one of more than 130 colleges and universities nationwide to serve as a site for the U.S. Navy’s V-12 Training Program. Designed to provide large numbers of college-educated men for the Navy's officer corps, the program requires trainees to pursue a Navy-mandated curriculum within a maximum of four successive terms of four months’ duration each. Trinity certifies successful completion of the academic requirements. By the end of October 1945, just over 900 men have participated in the program at Trinity in contrast to only 300 civilian students enrolled in the regular course sequence.
1944 Following President Ogilby’s sudden death in 1943, Dr. Arthur H. Hughes, Dean of the College, becomes acting president. After a national search, the Trustees appoint G. Keith Funston ’32, then serving in the Navy, as Trinity’s 13th president. Having risen rapidly in the business world before the War, he is inaugurated in early 1946 and becomes one of the youngest college presidents in the nation. Funston reestablishes the College on a firm peacetime footing and introduces a modern administrative structure. He leaves in 1951 to become president of the New York Stock Exchange.
1945 As result of the G. I. Bill of Rights, colleges and universities are overwhelmed by large numbers of returning servicemen seeking an education. By the fall of 1946, Trinity has almost 800 students, three-quarters of them veterans. To meet the demand the College goes on a temporary year-round schedule of classes.
1948 Trinity celebrates its 125th anniversary and undertakes a successful fund-raising campaign marked by participation of 66% of the alumni.
The Memorial Field House is dedicated in memory of Trinity men who gave their lives during World War II.
1951 Upon President Funston’s resignation, Dr. Arthur H. Hughes once again becomes acting president. He establishes the summer carillon concerts that prove lastingly popular. In 1975, an annual series of summer musical performances given by guest artists in the Chapel preceding the carillon concerts is instituted by Professor James R. Bradley ’57 of the Classics faculty.
1953 Dr. Albert C. Jacobs becomes Trinity’s 14th president. During 15 years in office he presides over an expansion of the undergraduate body from 900 to 1,250 and a broadening of its geographical diversity; an increase in the number of full-time faculty from 83 to 134; the strengthening of the College’s finances by the raising of more than $25 million, principally through two major fund-raising campaigns; and a deepening and solidifying of Trinity’s ties with Hartford. In addition, the physical plant expands with the construction of several facilities, including four dormitories, an arts center, a clock tower and adjoining administration building, a student center, two instructional buildings in the sciences, and an athletic complex.
Dr. Vernon K. Krieble, Scovill Professor of Chemistry, develops Loctite, an industrial sealant. His discovery results in the formation of a company that becomes a multi-million dollar worldwide enterprise.
1954 At a special convocation in October, Trinity confers an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on U. S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
1956 Professor Marjorie V. Butcher, a specialist in actuarial mathematics, becomes the first woman to be appointed to the faculty. A part-time lecturer for many years, she becomes an associate professor in 1974 and full professor in 1979.
1958 Through the efforts of Professor of Romance Languages Michael R. Campo ’48, the Cesare Barbieri Center for Italian Studies is established. With Professor Campo as its director, the Barbieri Center, later known as the Cesare Barbieri Endowment for Italian Culture, sponsors a wide variety of events and activities related to Italian culture and the arts, and comes to play a major role in the intellectual life of the College and in the community beyond.
1966 The visit to campus of Dr. Constantinos Doxiadis, the internationally renowned urban and regional planner, leads to an exploration of neighborhood renewal in the area surrounding Trinity, an effort that comes to fruition in the late 20th century with neighborhood revitalization and the Learning Corridor.
1968 In April, citing the lack of adequate scholarship assistance for black students at Trinity, 168 undergraduates engage in a protest that temporarily prevents members of the Board of Trustees’ Executive Committee from leaving their scheduled meeting in the Downes Clock Tower boardroom. The subsequent sit-in occupation of Downes underscores mounting student dissatisfaction with ineffective communication by the administration on a wide range of issues and a heightened sense of dismay at racial relations in the country brought on by the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A committee of administrators and faculty reach agreement with the demonstrators on taking reasonable steps to increase scholarship assistance to black students, and the protest ends peacefully without the intervention of city police.
At his inauguration in the fall, Trinity’s 15th president, Dr. Theodore D. Lockwood ’48, announces that the Trustees are considering the introduction of coeducation.
In the spring of 1969 the College participates in an exchange program with Vassar that brings women students to live and study on campus.
1969 Coeducation becomes a reality with the arrival of the first women admitted to a Trinity freshman class. In addition, a number of women transfer to the College to complete their education.
In the fall, a new “open” curriculum is introduced, putting Trinity in the vanguard of liberal arts colleges. The open curriculum is more flexible, institutes non-major course guidelines in place of distribution requirements, and introduces such innovations as freshman seminars, “College Courses”, and an “open semester” program to encourage independent study and internships. Also introduced are new majors, including sociology, Non-Western Studies (now International Studies), and American Studies, among others.
Professor Dori Katz is appointed to the Modern Languages faculty and becomes the first woman to hold a tenure-track position, to be granted tenure, to be elected to the faculty’s Appointments and Promotions Committee, and to chair the Committee.
1970 At Commencement, four women, all of whom are transfers to Trinity, become the first in the College’s history to receive baccalaureate degrees. They are: Judith (Judy) Dworin, Elizabeth M. Gallo, Judith A. L. Odlum, and Roberta J. Russell.
The College inaugurates the Rome Program, the inspiration of Professor Michael R. Campo ’48. An outgrowth of the new curriculum, the Program is hailed as bringing an “international dimension to the education Trinity offers.” Trinity faculty and other scholars teach courses in such areas as: Italian history and culture; Italian literature, language and civilization; fine arts; studio arts; music; and classical archaeology. Students are drawn from Trinity and other colleges and universities. Considered a model of its kind, it is now known as the Trinity College Rome Campus Program.
In December, Cinestudio, the student run cinema program in the Clement Chemistry Building’s Krieble Auditorium, completes its first semester of 35mm operations. Cinestudio goes on to become an important cultural asset for the College and the Greater Hartford community, and celebrates its 35th anniversary in 2005.
1971 The Individualized Degree Program (IDP), another outgrowth of the new curriculum, is inaugurated in the fall. Designed to offer a flexible option for students to pursue an undergraduate degree outside the traditional four-year track, the new program is particularly appealing to older students. In the years ensuing, the IDP program continues to attract students who are highly motivated.
1973 Trinity celebrates the 150th anniversary of its founding. Festivities begin on May 11, and on Charter Day, May 16, Connecticut Governor Thomas J. Meskill ’50 signs a proclamation declaring May 16-22 Trinity College Week.
1974 President Lockwood establishes the Presidential Fellows to recognize outstanding academic achievements of members of the senior class.
Robin L. Sheppard joins the athletic staff as coach, principally of women’s field hockey. In 23 seasons her teams compile a 227-62-13 record. Coach Sheppard later becomes Associate Director of Athletics.
1975 Following previous appearances at the Henley Royal Regatta in England, the heavyweight crew team under Coach Norman T. Graf wins the coveted Ladies’ Plate.
1977 The Women’s Center, now known as the Women & Gender Resource Action Center, is formed as a gathering place for women and all interested members of the Trinity Community. It serves as an advocate for feminist issues, offering special events, lectures, educational programs, and referral services, and later publishes the Feminist Scholarship Review.
1982 The Trinity Papers, an annual collection of exceptional undergraduate research papers in various disciplines, appears for the first time.
1986 At a special convocation in January, President James F. English, Jr. confers an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree on the Rt. Rev. Desmond M. B. Tutu, Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg and Nobel Peace Laureate. Later in the year the College undertakes to divest itself fully of all investments in corporations conducting business in South Africa.
1992 Peter A. Adams ’95, Paul W. Tedesco ’95, and Frank E. Sikernitsky ’96, among others, establish the Trincoll Journal, a pioneering on-line weekly multimedia journal, the first undergraduate venture of its kind in the country. The Internet’s first student-run “web ‘zine,” the journal’s imaginative hypertext format, which incorporates video, sound and graphics into articles on a variety of topics, including popular culture, and social and political issues, wins it several awards from the on-line and multimedia industry.
1996 Trinity announces the details of an imaginative neighbor-hood revitalization effort spearheaded by Trinity president Dr. Evan S. Dobelle and supported by a pioneering private-public partnership between Trinity and its institutional neighbors, city, state and federal government, foundations and corporations, and community and neighborhood groups. “Designed to establish the neighborhoods surrounding Trinity as a central hub of educational, health and family support activities,” the project centers on a tract of land between Broad Street and Washington Street south of Vernon Street, formerly occupied by a transit bus garage. With education as its central theme, plans call for converting the site into a “Learning Corridor” that will be home to three new schools at the elementary, middle and high school level.
President Dobelle sets in motion a planning process that results a year later in the creation of a Campus Master Plan. The Plan is designed to coordinate expansion of the physical plant, maximize land use while respecting open spaces, enhance internal pedestrian and vehicular traffic flow, and improve external access to the campus.
1997 Trinity celebrates 100 years of instruction in engineering. It is one of only two liberal arts colleges in the nation to have an engineering program accredited both educationally and professionally.
1998 On Charter Day, May 16, the College celebrates the 175th anniversary of its chartering by the Connecticut General Assembly. Ceremonies held at the Old State House where the charter was granted in 1823 include a reenactment of the signing by Trinity’s founders of the petition to the General Assembly for the charter. In his address President Dobelle announces the adoption of a new strategic plan for Trinity that calls for an increased emphasis on the study of urban issues, enhanced opportunities for “global learning” at selected overseas sites, and an experimental Tutorial College modeled on the tutorial system at Oxford and Cambridge.
At Commencement, Trinity confers an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree on former U. S. President Jimmy Carter.
In June, a Boys & Girls Club on Broad Street, part of the Learning Corridor initiative, is dedicated in honor of the donors, Ann and Thomas S. Johnson ’62, by General Colin L. Powell, U.S. Army (Ret.), a board member of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Staffed largely by Trinity student volunteers, the Boys & Girls Club provides a variety of recreational outlets for neighborhood youth.
Trinity establishes a Human Rights Program to promote student awareness and facilitate development of courses in different disciplines that address human rights issues. In addition, the Program sponsors a lecture series during the academic year, supports undergraduate summer fellow-ships, and brings advocacy fellows-in-residence to the campus to illuminate various aspects of human rights.
The Lower Long Walk is completed, the first project carried out in Phase I of the Campus Master Plan.
1999 The men’s squash team under Coach Paul Assaiante becomes the first in Division III competition to win the National Intercollegiate Squash Racquets’ Association team championship, defeating Harvard University 8-1. Since then Trinity has successfully defended its national championship title each consecutive year.
2000 The Tutorial College marks its inaugural semester at the beginning of the academic year with close to 60 sophomores living and learning together in the Summit Tower portion of the new Summit Tower-Summit Street dormitory complex, the first structures to be completed under Phase I of the Campus Master Plan.
In October, the Learning Corridor is dedicated at a community open house. President Dobelle declares the opening “a historic event for the Hartford community and its children” and “proof that citizens and community groups, working together with a local college, business leaders, other nonprofit organizations, foundations, and local, state, and federal governments, can create positive and lasting change.”
2001 The Admissions and Career Services Center, the second building completed in Phase I of the Campus Master Plan, is dedicated in September.
Northam Terrace on Summit Street is completed in the fall. It leads to the Northam Towers Arch that has been opened as a grand entryway to the Quad.
2002 The women’s squash team wins its first national championship and the following year wins a second consecutive national championship.
The College completes the reconstruction of Vernon Street as part of the Campus Master Plan.
2003 Dedicated in October, the Raether Library and Information Technology Center is the third major construction project completed during Phase I of the Campus Master Plan.
Trinity acquires the former Connecticut Public Broad-casting building on the corner of New Britain Avenue and Summit Street. Designated the “Trinity Commons”, it is converted to College administrative office and program space in 2007.
The Watkinson Library marks the 50th anniversary of its incorporation into the Trinity College Library. Formerly an independent research library in downtown Hartford with strong collections in the humanities and social sciences, including the history and development of the Americas, the Watkinson significantly augments the College’s library resources. In 2004, the Trinity Library celebrates the acquisition of its one-millionth volume – the first American edition of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1860), one of the most influential works ever published.
2004 James F. Jones, Jr. is inaugurated as Trinity’s 21st president.
Trinity establishes an Islamic chaplaincy to provide a spiritual framework for the College’s Muslim population and to serve as a resource for Muslim and non-Muslim students alike. Sohaib Nazeer Sultan, the Islamic chaplain, is studying in the Hartford Seminary’s Islamic Chaplaincy graduate program, the only one of its kind in the country. The College thus becomes one of a few institutions of higher education in the United States to provide such a chaplaincy.
2005 Trinity’s Department of Theater and Dance marks the 35th anniversary of dance as part of the College’s curriculum and honors the pioneering work of Judy Dworin ’70, who developed the study and performance of dance at Trinity.
2006 The 611 members of the Class of 2010 comprise the largest freshman class to enroll in the College’s history.
Planning begins for major restoration and renovation of the Long Walk. Dating from the late 1870s and early 1880s, the buildings comprising this complex are the oldest on campus.
2007 The College formally inaugurates the Koeppel Community Sports Center featuring the Albert C. Williams ’64 Skating Rink. The rink is home to the men’s and women’s hockey teams and also serves as a recreational resource for people in the Hartford area and the Trinity neighborhood, including school children.
2008 The College completes a $32.9 million restoration and renovation of the Long Walk. Trinity went to great lengths to preserve the historic and architectural integrity of the three buildings, while outfitting the classrooms, faculty offices, and student suite-style rooms with modern-day, state-of-the-art amenities.