Kellogg Bridge Grant

The Kellogg award will continue the work supported by the Foundation’s previous five-year, $5.1 million initiative, which played a vital role in connecting the College to its surrounding neighborhoods. As noted by Jim Trostle, Director of Urban Initiatives, “The Kellogg Foundation has given the College this vote of confidence in our urban work. Faculty, staff, students, administrators, and our neighbors in Hartford are all participating in this project. The extension of Kellogg funding will help us create the administrative and financial base to ensure that the college’s urban engagement will continue for the foreseeable future.”

To date, Kellogg funding has helped Trinity create a nationally recognized Smart Neighborhood Initiative to provide information technology to the surrounding neighborhood, establish a Cities Data Center that supports teaching and scholarship; assess community needs, manage the Learning Corridor, and build positions of leadership within the College designed to strengthen urban studies and community learning.

The bridge grant will help the College anchor these successful endeavors within the curriculum under the leadership of Trostle, who will work to increase coherence among urban offices and programs while guiding analysis and interpretation of evaluation data gathered as part of the earlier project. Funds from the bridge grant will continue technology education efforts under way at Trinfo Café, the community technology center that serves as the cornerstone of the Smart Neighborhood Initiative. Trinity Center for Neighborhoods (TCN) will augment the flow of students and ideas from campus into Hartford and back. Efforts to keep the city as a center of the curriculum will also grow during the bridge period through efforts to refine Trinity’s Community Learning Initiative (CLI).

The Cities Data Center (CDC) will continue to collaborate with local community groups on datasets focusing on topics like housing, crime, and education that can assist in scholarship and community research. Other efforts to build neighborhood capacity will be spread through a variety of offices at the College, focusing on technology, fundraising, and organizational development, helping community groups to become stronger partners while simultaneously working to revitalize the city’s South End.

Evaluation will continue to be a key element of the bridge grant, helping the College decide how best to integrate its urban programs into the curriculum. The bridge period will also be a time for the College to share its learning through articles, conference presentations, visits to other campuses, and an edited volume documenting the project’s work.        

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