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“During a highly anticipated press conference today, officials from the Connecticut Jewish Ledger newspaper (www.jewishledger.com) announced ‘Connecticut’s Annual Jewish Movers & Shakers for 2005’ List. The group of 29 talented, accomplished and dedicated business professionals, community leaders and students were chosen for their actions in the Jewish community in Connecticut and throughout the world …Connecticut’s Annual Jewish Movers & Shakers for 2005 [include]: … Henry Zachs, West Hartford – This talented businessman purchased and donated 12 acres of land for the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Community Services Building on the Jewish Community Center campus and made possible the $2.8 million Trinity College Hillel House, which brings Jewish culture to students at the Hartford-based College.”

“Connecticut’s ‘Annual Jewish Movers & Shakers For 2005” List Announced By The Connecticut Jewish Ledger’”
Jewish Ledger, January 13, 2006

“If Samuel Alito Jr. is elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court following this week's hearings, he would become the fifth Roman Catholic justice on the bench, marking the first Catholic majority in history at a time of heightened debate on abortion, same-sex marriage and religious liberties. A fifth Catholic on the court also would mark a milestone in U.S. religious history, illustrating the increasing diversity of faith in a nation whose founding fathers were predominantly Protestant … But several religious scholars and legal experts cautioned against attaching too much significance to a Catholic dominance of the court, noting that while the church takes a firm position on abortion and other issues, individuals differ widely in their own views … ‘To the degree that justices do their job of applying the Constitution to cases, the religious makeup should make no difference,’ said David Machacek, [visiting assistant] professor of public policy at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. ‘The real issue is how their faith shapes the way they interpret the Constitution.’”

“With Alito, Catholics would be court majority
His confirmation would mark a milestone, but experts debate what the impact would be”
Chicago Tribune, January 13, 2006

“Ten years ago, the University of Pennsylvania was under siege, its ivy towers wreathed by an abandoned industrial wasteland, filth and soaring crime. Parents feared for their children after two student homicides. The neighborhood McDonald's was nicknamed McDeath. Students were virtual prisoners on campus. Today, Penn is the among the hottest schools in the country -- sitting smack in the middle of a clean and vital retail neighborhood where crime has been reduced by 49 percent in the past decade, and where students swarm the streets shopping at upscale stores. Penn has jumped in the U.S. News & World Report college rankings to No. 4 and attracts significantly more applicants … Penn is at the forefront of a national trend of urban colleges that are aggressively trying to bridge "town-gown" tensions by investing heavily in adjacent troubled neighborhoods -- and by making a connection with local civic life … ‘The return to urban schools reflects a broad shift in popular culture -- cities are cool again,’ said Bruce Katz, urban expert at the Brookings Institution. Consequently, ‘there is a greater appreciation that a university's fortunes reflect the place in which they are situated -- there is no separating the interests,’ he added. ‘They know they have to step up to the plate.’ Many schools have. Yale University -- in the notoriously shabby downtown of New Haven, Conn. -- has developed retail and office space nearby, offered financial incentives to employees to buy homes in the neighborhood, and joined with local schools to offer tutoring, internships and college advisers. Trinity College and local partners spent more than $100 million to turn a run-down area in Hartford, Conn., beset by drive-by shootings and condemned buildings into a 16-acre Learning Corridor with four local schools.”

“Urban Colleges Learn to Be Good Neighbors: Universities Also Reap
Benefits From Investing in Their Communities”
Washington Post, January 9, 2006

“Stupidity and sadness, cancer and bad golf scores. In the world according to Transhumanism, these and other human frailties will eventually go the way of scurvy. Also on the horizon: immortality. The possibilities are either tantalizing or terrifying, depending on your point of view. Transhumanists embrace a future in which everyone has the right to live a life beyond current biological limitations. Their detractors argue that all these radical enhancements will make us less human … Eventually, say transhumanists, we may indeed become "posthuman" — such an amalgamation of nanotechnology and neuropharmaceuticals, so changed by our interface with microchips and nanorobots, so much smarter, happier and healthier, that we hardly would be recognizable to early 21st century eyes. It's science fiction based on science fact, a trajectory that begins with emerging technologies like cyberkinetic chips and gene therapy, says [Trinity’s Associate Director of Institutional Research and Planning] James Hughes, president of the World Transhumanist Association and author of ‘Citizen Cyborg.’ Actually, says Hughes, that trajectory began as soon as our Paleolithic ancestors started taking care of everyone who was toothless, a point at which we first transcended natural selection, he says. We have relied on technologies of one sort or another for millennia — from eye glasses to antibiotics — to continually make ourselves better than we naturally are. But where do we draw the line? Or should we draw a line at all? … If we can make depressed people less depressed, should we make happy people more happy? If we can make our children healthier and smarter, if we can eliminate much of the suffering in the world through technology, do we have a moral responsibility to do so? Or do we have a moral responsibility to speak out against it? These questions and hundreds of others will face humanity in the decades to come.”

“Shall we enhance? Transhumanism says we're a species in flux”
Deseret Morning News, January 7, 2006

“… there is something different about Zeta Omega Eta at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.: This sorority calls itself ‘feminist.’ A ‘feminist sorority’? At Trinity, known affectionately (or not) as ‘Camp Trin Trin’? Yes. And yes, I'm sure I didn't mean Wesleyan (Trinity's far crunchier neighbor to the south). ‘Feminist sorority’ does indeed sound like an oxymoron, and to a certain extent it is. As far as anyone is aware, it's the only such group on any U.S. campus. (Zeta's only known counterpart, at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock … The day might not be so far away when a 'feminist sorority' no longer has to be just a 'local.'’ …Zeta Omega Eta, which spells a Greek word for ‘life,’ was founded in 2003 by current seniors Anne-Louise Marquis and Meghan Boone as a place for like-minded women at Trinity -- who, they say, sometimes feel excluded from a certain preppy/party culture -- to come together socially and, broadly speaking, politically. ‘Greek life dominates the social scene; basically, if you're not going to a Greek party you're not going to any party,’ says Boone, who is from Royal Palm Beach, Fla. ‘The two sororities are pretty sorority-ish in the classic sense,’ says Boone. ‘It seemed like there was a whole group of girls who were being left out of the scene. We thought the word 'sorority,' much like the word 'feminist,' should be reclaimed.’ Marquis and Boone, roommates at the time, set out about 10 chairs for Zeta's first organizational meeting. Nearly 50 students showed up. One of them was current senior Sarah Carter, 21, of Durham, N.H., who'd come to Trinity for the full financial aid she was offered, and who had strongly considered transferring. Trinity's ‘reputation for elitism, you know, pop the collar, loafers without socks,’ had, in her experience, proved true to a large degree. ‘It was kind of disappointing being a feminist and walking into the Women's Center and’ -- she whistles and mimes tumbleweeds rolling across a road – ‘finding no one around.’"

“Delta, Delta, Delta, Feminist, Feminist, Feminist? A sorority at
Trinity College aims to redefine sisterhood”
Salon.com, December 22, 2005
 

”It was not until this year that Trinity College senior Bridget Reilly, a Hispanic studies major, set foot on Park Street, the lively thoroughfare of Hispanic food markets, restaurants and shops a short walk from campus. Reilly spent her junior year in Spain, but knew little about the mostly Puerto Rican neighborhoods surrounding the private college in Hartford. All of that changed when she took a new course requiring students to immerse themselves in the city's Hispanic culture by exploring neighborhoods, meeting business owners and talking with residents. ‘I had been to the Bushnell, the Atheneum, the typical things in Hartford, but I never made it to Park Street,’ said Reilly, 21, of Fair Haven, N.J., who is completing a photography project about life along the street. The ‘Hispanic Hartford’ course, a requirement for students majoring in Hispanic studies, is another part of the effort by Trinity to build an identity as an urban liberal arts college by establishing closer ties with the surrounding community … For homework, modern languages Professor Anne Lambright assigned weekly essays about the community, asking students to walk down Park Street, interview a Latino employee at Trinity, eat in a Latino restaurant, talk to the owner of a Hispanic business and work in a class at the largely Hispanic Moylan Elementary School … The idea for the class arose two years ago, Lambright said, after two colleagues took some graduating seniors to lunch at a neighborhood restaurant. The seniors ‘had been to Spain, had been to Chile, but had never been to Park Street,’ she said. ‘They were absolutely shocked to see this vibrant Hispanic community next door.’”

“Trinity Explores Park St; Students Encouraged to Learn from Area”
Hartford Courant, December 19, 2005
 

”Jeffry Walker, director of programming at Trinity College's Austin Arts Center in Hartford, didn't think he'd be hauling trees when he received the Elizabeth Mahaffey Fellowship for excellence in arts administration from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. Walker, who is also a solo performance artist, thought he'd use the $2,500 stipend, coupled with his own vacation time, to travel to artists retreats nationwide. His aim was to learn how these colonies dedicated to creativity operate and apply it to a 200-acre property in Ashford that Trinity College would like to develop for arts purposes. One of the places on Walker's touring list was A Studio in the Woods in New Orleans. But when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast in late summer, one of the casualties was the small not-for-profit artist's retreat founded by septuagenarians Lucianne and Joseph Carmichael, a retired public school principal and newspaperman. The structures of A Studio in the Woods survived the ravages of the storms, but the 8 acres of the artist-ecological retreat - as well as the forest beyond the enclave's borders - was devastated. Walker amended his plans. He called the Carmichaels and volunteered to fly down, roll up his sleeves and do what he could to help. It was an illuminating experience that made him realize ‘how fragile these places are, how delicate their mission is and what it takes to keep something alive that is so fundamentally important but is so undervalued.’ … ‘I asked Lucianne if there would be anyone else there when I came down. She said, “Jeffry, you have to understand everyone is dealing with their own problems. Everyone is trying to save their house, their mother's house or their children's school. Everyone is dealing with what is right in front of them.” To me, that made my little stint all the more meaningful. But I also felt I might not be able to do much. I'm just one guy with a week free. What's that? But I could at least try to be helpful.’ In mid-October the Glastonbury resident packed two suitcases with a bow saw, branch cutters and his Wellington boots. ‘I came ready to work,’ he says, ‘and I knew I would be working very hard.’”

“Work In The Woods Illuminates Promise Of The Arts”
Hartford Courant, December 18, 2005
 

“Fred Pfeil, 56, of Hartford died Nov. 29. Fred Pfeil was a writer, a teacher and a political activist committed to social change through nonviolent means. He also practiced Buddhism and taught meditation and conflict resolution to prisoners and to students in Hartford schools … In 1985, he applied to Trinity College in Hartford for a position teaching creative writing. His political activities made some people nervous about his suitability. Nevertheless, ‘he wowed everyone,’ said [Professor of English] Milla Riggio, who was on the search committee. ‘He had a mind that was brilliantly analytical, and he convinced students that what they were studying was really important,’ said Sheila Fisher, chairwoman of the English Department. ‘He was funky, original, unpretentious and down to earth.’ While at Trinity, he organized a film-studies program, taught American studies and English and directed the creative-writing program. One semester-long seminar he often taught concerned only one book, Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow." He was faculty adviser to VOID, Voices Organized in Democracy, a progressive student group, and he helped organize support for college food-service workers. ‘He was deeply interested and concerned with social justice and really standing up for those people who had trouble standing,’ said Michael Niemann, a professor of international studies at Trinity. Pfeil, along with Niemann and others, brought a Quaker program titled ‘Alternatives to Violence’ to the Enfield Correctional Institution. The program used role-playing to encourage inmates to listen to others and develop empathy. Pfeil used a similar program, called "Help Increase the Peace," at Quirk Middle School in Hartford and helped start workshops in meditation and nonviolence at the women's prison in Niantic … Despite his weighty interests, Pfeil wasn't all seriousness. He loved eating. He loved jazz, especially Bill Frisell and Charlie Parker, and worked hard to give up smoking. He walked or biked whenever he could, hiked across England in silence and was reluctant to drive if there were alternate means of transportation … ‘He felt more the suffering of the people of the world, so his politics were about trying to alleviate that suffering, either by changing policies or by bearing witness to the fact that injustices were being done," his wife said.

“Writer-Teacher Fred Pfeil's Short Life In Pursuit Of Peace”
Hartford Courant, December 18 2005

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