Trinity College opened its 203rd academic year on September 3, 2026, when new students, their families, and members of the Trinity community gathered in the Ferris Athletic Center’s Ray Oosting Gymnasium for Convocation and Matriculation.
Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Matthew S. Hyde introduced the 572 members of the Class of 2030 and 19 transfer students as a truly global cohort. Hyde said, “The most local amongst you can skip just up the street about a half mile to her Hartford home, while the Bantam among you who journeyed the furthest will need to hop 9,055 miles across oceans and continents to her home in Pattani, Thailand.”
While the students come from all over the world, Hyde told them they have something in common. “Each and every one of you belongs at Trinity,” he said. “Use your collective dynamism as fuel to think deeply, to learn actively, and to gain a keen sense of why your education matters in the world.” To learn more about the members of the Class of 2030—including where they are from, what they plan to study, and the experiences they bring to the College community—click here.
In his charge to the incoming students, Trinity College President Daniel G. Lugo said that the hard work of learning is not merely the work of finding an answer. “It is the work of becoming someone who enjoys and is capable of meeting a difficult question, someone who can closely examine and leverage evidence, make connections… someone who can adapt, fail, fail again—and begin again,” he said.
Lugo encouraged students to lead with curiosity. “Commit to building meaningful connections. Use your voice, and make room for the voices of others. Always ask for help, and generously offer it in return,” he said. “And when the work and the experience becomes difficult, because I promise you it will, because it is supposed to … stay with it, embrace the hard—not because struggle is the destination, but because your most valuable and important growth lies on the other side.”
New students and their families also heard from Adam D. Hill ’08, who is both an associate professor of chemistry and a Trinity alumnus. Hill shared advice about making the most of one’s undergraduate years. “Here at Trinity, embrace the weirdness that explains how our world works. Get into the strangeness, the details, the parts of your experiences that could not happen to anyone else,” he said. “The goal is not to limit yourself to people who already like what you like; it is to expand and to meet the weird things the people of Trinity introduce you to. Face the challenges and notice the details in your time at Trinity.”
Garth A. Myers, secretary of the faculty and Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of Urban International Studies, encouraged the new students to build connections with faculty members and to get involved in Hartford. “As a faculty, we truly believe in this notion of engagement, not only with the city of Hartford but also with the life of the College, here on campus, in our urban surroundings, in the state of Connecticut, and in the world,” he said. “To be engaged is to be curious. To be curious in the 21st century demands that you think boldly and independently. And thinking boldly and independently will lead to transformative lives.”
Sriram Jetty ’28 and Maddison Petrow ’27, co-presidents of the Student Government Association, welcomed the Class of 2030 and transfer students on behalf of the student body. “Give yourself permission over these next four years to be uncomfortable sometimes,” Jetty advised. “Take the class that intimidates you. Introduce yourself to someone you don’t know. … Join something even if you’re not sure you belong there yet. Raise your hand even when you’re worried you might be wrong.”
Petrow added, “Who you become over the next four years will be shaped by countless experiences. But more than anything, it will be shaped by the people around you.”
Jetty and Petrow assisted with The Trinity Toast—a lemonade toast to the incoming class using The Lemon Squeezer—one of the many Trinity traditions that connect generations of Bantams.
Before the new students took the Oath of Matriculation during the ceremony, they learned that matriculation is the symbolic act of enrolling at the College and that it is the oldest continuously observed tradition at Trinity.
To mark their matriculation, two representatives of the new students—a member of the Class of 2030 and a transfer student—signed the College’s Matriculation book, as all new students would do the next day. The book is one in a long series of volumes preserved in the archives since the founding of the College in 1823.
To conclude the ceremony, Provost and Dean of Faculty Sonia Cardenas declared that Trinity’s 203rd academic year was officially under way. “May each of you excel in your studies and be moved and transformed by the ideas and the intellectual passions you are about to encounter,” she said.
View the program here. Watch a recording of the ceremony and see more photos below.
Through collaborative partnerships across campus, in Hartford, and beyond, Trinity’s Pre-Orientation Programs foster awareness, care, connection, conversations, and experiences as a community.
For one Trinity College alumnus, the work of conducting research with faculty-scholars didn’t stop at graduation. Jacob Loor ’25—now a second-year law student at Yale Law School—recently had an article that he co-wrote with two Trinity faculty members published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Trinity College staff and faculty members recently heard from best-selling author and kindness expert Shola Richards. The community gathered before the start of the academic year to continue the work of building a culture of belonging and connection on campus.
Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of alumni, parents, families, and friends, the Trinity College Fund raised $10.5 million in fiscal year 2026, marking the most successful year for annual giving in the College’s history.
