August 31, 2015

Dear Members of the Trinity College Community,

One of the recommendations of the College’s review of its social life in 2012 was the creation of a committee that would annually assess the progress of selective social organizations and social organizations with a facility, including sororities and fraternities, toward specified goals to strengthen social life.  That committee, known as the Student Organization Review Committee (SORC), composed of members of the faculty, staff, and student body, has been working collectively to accomplish this.  The committee’s charge includes reviewing and assessing the annual reports submitted to them by the organizations in their purview.  SORC has issued its report covering the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 academic years, and I’d like to share it with the Trinity community.  The full report may be found here.

The Student Organization Review Committee’s role is to assess progress toward compliance with goals set by a subcommittee of the Implementation Committee for Building Community and to provide constructive feedback to each organization with suggestions for improvement.  The SORC report includes the committee’s review and points us toward future steps for improvement.

Trinity has made substantial progress toward the Charter Committee for Building Social Community’s overarching goals of a strengthened campus social life.  This progress includes new pre-orientation and first-year programs for incoming students, the redesigned and renovated Vernon Social, the launch this week of the new Bantam Network for the Class of 2019, and the creation of an additional locus for campus life with the 2016 opening of the new bookstore and café adjacent to the new Crescent Street Townhouses.

I have charged our new Dean of Campus Life and Vice President for Student Affairs Joe DiChristina with coordinating our efforts in this area so that we will continue to build upon the recent progress.  Joe and his team will report to the community throughout the coming year on various student life initiatives.

Sincerely,

Joanne Berger-Sweeney
President and Trinity College
Professor of Neuroscience