September 8, 2026<\/p>\n
Dear Trinity Community Members,<\/p>\n
Welcome to the fall semester. Campus is once again bustling with energy, and I am pleased to extend my warmest greetings to everyone on campus and around the world. I am looking forward to an engaging and productive fall semester, and I am proud of all that our community has accomplished to set us up for another successful academic year.<\/p>\n
It was wonderful to see many of you at last week\u2019s Convocation ceremony when we welcomed 572 first-year students and 19 transfer students to the Trinity community. This year\u2019s incoming class<\/a> is 20 percent larger than last year\u2019s and includes students coming to campus from as close as Hartford and as far as Pattani, Thailand. Thank you to everyone who has been working to support our new and returning students and to continue to deliver transformative educational experiences and exceptional outcomes<\/a> for our students.<\/p>\n Building on this positive energy and momentum, I am excited to announce that the College will begin marketing a more transparent approach to our financial aid policies<\/a> for our most proximate communities, including children of Trinity employees and students from our home city of Hartford.<\/p>\n Going forward, Trinity will\u202fprovide\u202ffull-tuition remission to all admitted children of employees with three or more years of continuous, full-time service.\u202fThis is one step in the College\u2019s ongoing commitment to continuing to attract, retain, and support the best possible workforce that prepares our students to be bold, independent thinkers who lead transformative lives.<\/p>\n In Hartford, Trinity will begin offering the Capital City Grant that covers tuition and room and board for all admitted students whose primary residence is in the city. Trinity is committed to furthering our collaborations with Hartford and this program will ensure that all the top students from our home city see Trinity as a preferred option to continue their education.<\/p>\n We hope to further redefine our approach to financial aid with a focus on transparency and accessibility in the coming years. We felt that it was critical that this work started with recognizing the contributions of our faculty and staff and by further demonstrating the College\u2019s commitment to supporting our home city.<\/p>\n For those of you who are new to our community or returning to campus after a summer away, you will notice that several significant campus improvements were made over the summer, and several are ongoing. I\u2019ll highlight a few of the projects that our campus operations, facilities, and grounds team have worked hard to complete and invite you to take a look at the photo gallery of summer projects on campus<\/a>:<\/p>\n Our work on the new Elting Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship building is well underway on Vernon Street and is on schedule to open next fall. Also on Vernon Street, Eversource, our local power company, has been working to update their main service lines that run under the street, which has required notable roadwork that will be resurfaced in 2027. Lastly, you will surely notice the ongoing heating infrastructure work in the area of Gates Quad. This work is critical to upgrade the reliability and efficiency of our core heating and cooling systems and will be completed in October.<\/p>\n In addition to the campus improvements, as you are making your way around campus this fall, you will note that several campus offices and services have recently moved to better centralize our student resources. Many academic support services are now conveniently\u202flocated\u202ftogether on Level 1 of the Raether Library and Information Technology Center, while several other offices have\u202frelocated\u202fto Trinity Commons and Williams Memorial Hall. A comprehensive list of office moves is available in Trinity Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n All of these campus improvements would not be possible without the ongoing loyalty and support of our more than 30,000 Trinity alumni. Over the last fiscal year, Trinity raised nearly $39 million in philanthropic gifts with a record setting year in the Trinity College Fund totaling $10.5 million in cash contributions. Equally exciting is the College\u2019s growth in alumni philanthropic participation. This year, for the first time in more than a decade, more alumni made a gift to the college than in the prior year leading to alumni participation being up 4 percent. This is counter to national trends across colleges and universities and is another strong indicator of growing positive momentum in our community.<\/p>\n\n