A Capital Difference

Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut. Simply put, our location in a capital city, a center of business and culture, is one of our greatest assets.

Just ask Amy Marcotte, who joined a clinical research team at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Hartford Hospital. Her work on a vibrotactile stimulator, a device that prompts breathing in newborns with apnea, formed the basis of her senior project in medical bioengineering.

Ask Tim Plant, who through his "Modern Ideas in Education" course, worked one-on-one with a boy from a city elementary school in one of Trinity's many curricular initiatives that combine class work with community service.

Ask any of the hundreds of students who gain real-life work experiences each year through Trinity's 200 internship placements with organizations as diverse as the Department of Environmental Protection, Dean Witter, the Connecticut General Assembly, and Connecticut Public Television, located right on Trinity's campus.

In addition to experiential learning opportunities, the city affords Trinity students access to such cultural resources as the Wadsworth Atheneum and the Bushnell Memorial Auditorium, to such historic treasures as the Mark Twain House and Stowe-Day Foundation, and to the vital ethnic diversity of urban life through such community events as the South End's Italian Festival. Shuttles bring students to these locations and also to the Civic Center and other city venues for concerts, sports events, and shopping.

While many students go forth from campus into the city in search of the best that the city environment has to offer, others find that some of the best things at Trinity are enhanced when the city comes to campus‹when children from the neighborhood enjoy the annual Halloween party at Praxis, Trinity's community service dormitory, or when the acclaimed artistic director of Hartford Stage teaches a course as a visiting lecturer in the Theater and Dance Department.

For Sara Jaffe, some of the best interactions come from the fact that Trinity is itself a resource to the city and its residents. Sara, who has acted in many student productions, finds it gratifying to see familiar faces from the local community in attendance at Austin Arts Center performances. "It's really neat because there are regulars who come every time," she says.