Set on Summit Street in the capital city of Hartford, Trinity College is where the liberal arts meet the real world. Since it opened its doors in 1823, founded in the Episcopal tradition and rooted in principles of religious and academic freedom, Trinity has remained steadfastly committed to providing a liberal arts education that is both relevant and timeless.
Today, as we look toward the college’s bicentennial, we do so in the context of a world in which technology has led to innovations we couldn’t have imagined a half-century ago; in which scholarship has advanced understanding of our history, ourselves, and our planet; and in which our lives on campus can connect to those around the globe in ways that are at once instantaneous and enduring.
At the same time, we contemplate our future and that of the College in a challenging moment. Higher education has a singular role to play in creating knowledge, promoting inquiry and freedom of expression, and developing citizens who think critically, embrace complexity, and engage across differences in building a free, just society.
Trinity College is distinctly positioned to advance these ideals and meet these considerable responsibilities, all the while attending to the stability and sustainability of this historic institution. The strategic goals we set forth here will serve as our roadmap in this all-important work. As we pursue our goals, we affirm our values as an institution of integrity and intellectual vitality and as a community that encourages innovation, builds resilience, promotes balance, and instills the joy of lifelong learning.
It is our collective endeavor—our ability and our responsibility—to envision the Trinity we want to be and to pursue it unwaveringly. Together, we will honor the college’s history as we ascend to an ambitious new summit in the years ahead.
Nearly 200 students, staff, and faculty joined President Berger-Sweeney on December 5, 2017, for the official launch of the strategic plan. The festivities provided an opportunity for members of the campus community to discuss the goals and ideals of the Summit Plan and to find out how to get involved in implementing the plan.
On November 8, 2017, the Bicentennial Strategic Planning Committee steering committee, together with cabinet members, officially handed off the strategic plan to the new President’s Coordinating Group. The coordinating group is charged with overseeing and advancing the implementation of the strategic plan.
At their October meeting, trustees voted unanimously to approve the final strategic plan, endorsing with enthusiasm the bold goals of the plan and the course it sets toward the bicentennial and beyond.
Built from the committee reports and with the input of many community members, a draft strategic plan was shared publicly at the start of the fall semester, with an invitation for feedback on the ideas and aims articulated in the plan.
President Berger-Sweeney shared the draft reports and recommendations of the five BSPC committees with faculty, students, staff, alumni, and parents, and invited feedback and suggestions from the community.
The steering committee and members of the five subcommittees—more than 70 members of the college community—engaged in a day-long retreat on campus focused on the preliminary recommendations of each committee and the alignment of those recommendations with the college’s new mission statement.
After a nine-month process that began with the board of trustees in January 2016 and continued with faculty, staff, and students in spring 2016, the college introduced a new mission statement reflecting the evolving vision, values, and educational goals of the college, emphasizing our grounding in the traditional liberal arts and our distinctiveness as a college located in and engaged with a global capital city. The new mission statement helped guide the ongoing work of the Bicentennial Strategic Planning Commission.
In a lively Common Hour event at the Cave in Mather Hall, faculty, staff, and students came together to meet members of the planning commission and explore the areas of focus: Partnering with Hartford; A Global College; Learning and Skill Development Inside and Outside of the Classroom; Resources; and Facilities and Environmental Sustainability.
Nominations continued through June; appointments to the steering committee and five subcommittees were made by summer 2016.
In the coming months, we will develop feasible implementation plans to make more specific and concrete our strategic initiatives and to achieve our goals and objectives. These plans and the tactics they set forth will require the collective commitment and creative energy of students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents, neighbors, and friends.As we advance with a shared sense of purpose, we will engage the Trinity community in developing these plans, carrying them out, and assessing progress toward our goals in the years ahead.
This plan is a guide toward the future we imagine for Trinity College at its bicentennial in 2023. It is meant as a living document that will undoubtedly — and necessarily — evolve over time. We will seek to remain flexible to meet challenges that arise and seize opportunities that emerge, and we will do so by fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
In measuring the effectiveness of this plan, we will look toward the Bicentennial in 2023 and a set of broad indicators of success we hope to reach by then. Many more specific metrics of success will be included in detailed implementation plans that will grow from this strategic plan.
Our broad indicators of success will include:
A note about college rankings: While we don’t believe that any ordinal ranking of colleges can adequately paint a comprehensive comparative picture of institutions, we understand the importance of rankings to many prospective and current members of our community. We hope and expect to climb in college rankings in the years to come. But we do not articulate that as a goal in and of itself here; rather, we choose to focus on those indicators that we value, many of which are, in turn, valued by those whose job is to rank colleges.
As we plan for the future, we acknowledge and honor our rich past and build on the important work of those who came before us. In 1893, 70 years after the founding of the College, Bernard Christian Steiner asserted in his book The History of Education in Connecticut, “a prosperous future seems destined for Trinity College.” A half-century ago, in a societal context that was at least as tumultuous as today’s, the College embarked on its first sustained effort at continuous, long-range planning, with committees that considered whom the College should educate; to what purpose the College should educate; and the College’s relationship to its environment—local, national, and international.
Today, in a world of new challenges and opportunities, our ambitions for the future of Trinity College are grounded in the same fundamental questions about the College’s greater purpose and its relevance in the world. At the core of our endeavor is our belief in the distinctive power of a twenty-first century liberal arts education, one that prepares students to be bold, independent thinkers who lead transformative lives.
We are charting the way forward by following the strategic initiatives outlined in the plan, developing specific tactics and action steps, adapting to new information and ideas, tracking our progress systematically, and, most importantly, working resolutely together toward this shared vision for the future.
Implementation Themes
We’ve organized the initiatives in the strategic plan into five cross-cutting implementation themes that will be overseen by division leadership working within a shared governance framework. In that framework, relevant governance bodies (faculty, staff, students, trustees) participate and collaborate meaningfully according to their responsibilities, and all constituents (including alumni, parents, and community partners) are included in the conversation.
President’s Coordinating Group
This multi-constituent, cross-functional team will oversee and advance implementation of the strategic plan and is charged with:
Trinity’s Center for Analytics and Strategic Initiatives will work with the Coordinating Group to support data-informed planning. The group’s membership is:
President’s Cabinet
Faculty Members by Academic Division
Student Government and Staff Councils
Administrative Divisions
Supporting Participants
Tracking Our Progress
The Coordinating Group will receive updates from the implementation theme groups and report on our progress quarterly, the first of these expected in March 2018. You can sign up to receive these quarterly updates via email.
On Wednesday, November 8, the BSPC steering committee, together with cabinet members, officially handed off the strategic plan to the new coordinating group. The coordinating group now will meet monthly.
Set on Summit Street in the capital city of Hartford, Trinity College is where the liberal arts meet the real world. Since it opened its doors in 1823, founded in the Episcopal tradition and rooted in principles of religious and academic freedom, Trinity has remained steadfastly committed to providing a liberal arts education that is both relevant and timeless.
Today, as we look toward the College’s bicentennial, we do so in the context of a world in which technology has led to innovations we couldn’t have imagined a half-century ago; in which scholarship has advanced understanding of our history, ourselves, and our planet; and in which our lives on campus can connect to those around the globe in ways that are at once instantaneous and enduring.
At the same time, we contemplate our future and that of the College in a challenging moment. Higher education has a singular role to play in creating knowledge, promoting inquiry and freedom of expression, and developing citizens who think critically, embrace complexity, and engage across differences in building a free, just society.
Trinity College is distinctly positioned to advance these ideals and meet these considerable responsibilities, all the while attending to the stability and sustainability of this historic institution. The strategic goals we set forth here will serve as our roadmap in this all-important work. As we pursue our goals, we affirm our values as an institution of integrity and intellectual vitality and as a community that encourages innovation, builds resilience, promotes balance, and instills the joy of lifelong learning.
It is our collective endeavor—our ability and our responsibility—to envision the Trinity we want to be and to pursue it unwaveringly. Together, we will honor the College’s history as we ascend to an ambitious new summit in the years ahead.
As the preeminent liberal arts college in an urban setting, Trinity College prepares students to be bold, independent thinkers who lead transformative lives.
Objectives
Objectives
Objectives
In the coming months, we will develop feasible implementation plans to make more specific and concrete our strategic initiatives and to achieve our goals and objectives. These plans and the tactics they set forth will require the collective commitment and creative energy of students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents, neighbors, and friends. As we advance with a shared sense of purpose, we will engage the Trinity community in developing these plans, carrying them out, and assessing progress toward our goals in the years ahead.
This plan is a guide toward the future we imagine for Trinity College at its bicentennial in 2023. It is meant as a living document that will undoubtedly — and necessarily — evolve over time. We will seek to remain flexible to meet challenges that arise and seize opportunities that emerge, and we will do so by fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
In measuring the effectiveness of this plan, we will look toward the Bicentennial in 2023 and a set of broad indicators of success we hope to reach by then. Many more specific metrics of success will be included in detailed implementation plans that will grow from this strategic plan.
Our broad indicators of success will include:
A note about college rankings: While we don’t believe that any ordinal ranking of colleges can adequately paint a comprehensive comparative picture of institutions, we understand the importance of rankings to many prospective and current members of our community. We hope and expect to climb in college rankings in the years to come. But we do not articulate that as a goal in and of itself here; rather, we choose to focus on those indicators that we value, many of which are, in turn, valued by those whose job is to rank colleges.
As we plan for the future, we acknowledge and honor our rich past and build on the important work of those who came before us. In 1893, 70 years after the founding of the College, Bernard Christian Steiner asserted in his book The History of Education in Connecticut, “a prosperous future seems destined for Trinity College.” A half-century ago, in a societal context that was at least as tumultuous as today’s, the College embarked on its first sustained effort at continuous, long-range planning, with committees that considered whom the College should educate; to what purpose the College should educate; and the College’s relationship to its environment—local, national, and international.
Today, in a world of new challenges and opportunities, our ambitions for the future of Trinity College are grounded in the same fundamental questions about the College’s greater purpose and its relevance in the world. At the core of our endeavor is our belief in the distinctive power of a twenty-first century liberal arts education, one that prepares students to be bold, independent thinkers who lead transformative lives.