‘Your Tomorrow Begins Today’: Convocation Opens Academic Year

Trinity College marked the beginning of its 201st academic year today by welcoming a global group of students hailing from counties including Armenia, Botswana, India, Lebanon, New Zealand, Peru, Serbia, and Sri Lanka, in addition to 35 U.S. states.

While introducing the Class of 2028 during the President’s Convocation and Matriculation Ceremony at the Koeppel Community Sports Center, Matthew S. Hyde, dean of admissions and financial aid, noted that the first-year who lives closest to Trinity is a resident of Hartford, and the one who made the longest journey traveled thousands of miles from Malaysia.

“Your cultural, racial, and ethnic dimensions reflect the exciting dimensions of our Earth’s population. Your faiths and beliefs span the spectrum, and your eclectic talents will light up our campus,” Hyde said. “We’ve brought the world to you, and now it’s on you to explore it.”

Along with the 547 new first-year undergraduate students, Trinity also welcomed 17 transfer students and two new students in Trinity’s Individualized Degree Program (IDP). Thirty Bantams in Class of 2028 followed family members to Trinity, and 91 students in the class became the first member of their family to attend college. Read more about the Class of 2028 here.

“Each and every one of you belongs at Trinity,” Hyde said. “While you should find comfort when and where your interests and identities align, I challenge each of you to reach for and relish the knowledge that can be gained when you discover what’s uncommon amongst you.”

President Joanne Berger-Sweeney described Trinity as a remarkable place of discovery and learning, where students can find their purpose in life. “At Trinity, you will find what you need,” she said. “You will have challenges that you’re not exactly sure how to resolve. You will meet people with opinions different from your own, but people with whom you can form connections for life.”

She also told the incoming students that they hold the power to create a future in which they wish to live. “Your tomorrow begins today, here at Trinity, and let it be shaped by your purpose and by the faculty and staff and friends around you,” she said.

Berger-Sweeney noted that the Class of 2028 is special to her, as it is the last new class she will greet at Convocation as president before her retirement in 2025, after 11 years leading the College.

Ava Caudle ’25, president of Trinity’s Student Government Association, encouraged students to get to know themselves and explore new opportunities for growth while at Trinity. “Every challenge, every surprise, every pivot signifies a new chance to show yourself who you really are,” she said. “I hope you all learn and grow as much in your coming four years as I have.”

Caudle used Trinity’s mascot, the Bantam, to inspire a sense of perseverance in her newest peers. “Bantams are underestimated but fiercely loyal—and after every slight or blow, they jump back up… with more determination than before,” she said. “This institution teaches us to persist until we prevail, no matter our disciplines or life paths.”

Speaking to the new students as both an alumna and faculty member, Channon S. Miller ’11, assistant professor of American studies and history, continued the program’s theme of finding one’s purpose and voice at Trinity.

“You carry possibilities not yet awakened—imaginings of your future that have only just begun to take shape—and stories of resilience not yet written,” Miller said.

Miller, who grew up in Hartford, said that she learned how to conquer a sense of self-doubt that she felt in her first days as a Trinity student. Her advice was, “Lean into and listen for voices that announce that, as writer Toni Morrison would say, ‘You are your best thing!’”

Before the new students took the Oath of Matriculation during the ceremony, Berger-Sweeney said, “Matriculation seeks to welcome incoming students formally to this fellowship of learners that makes Trinity such a very special place to spend one’s undergraduate years.”

To mark their matriculation to Trinity, three representatives of the new students—a member of the Class of 2028, a transfer student, and an IDP student—signed the College’s Matriculation book, as all new students would have a chance to do later in the day. “Your addition to this book will serve as a reminder to you and to all who are witnesses that you will approach your responsibilities with seriousness of purpose and with exemplary judgment,” Berger-Sweeney added.

Following Trinity’s traditional lemonade toast using the historic wooden lemon squeezer, Sonia Cardenas, dean of the faculty and vice president for academic affairs, declared that the College’s 201st 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.

The ceremony was part of the New Student Orientation program, which connects students to campus resources and helps them to establish a strong Trinity identity. Various opportunities presented through Pre-Orientation and Orientation NEXT Programs are rooted in efforts to foster awareness, care, connection, conversations, and experiences as a community.

One New Student Orientation session attended by all members of the Class of 2028 was “Building our Inclusive Community: We ALL Play a Part.” Anita A. Davis, vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion, said, “We must all remember our power and our responsibility to help create a Trinity where we pause to listen to each other, where we can disagree and respect each other in the midst of that disagreement, where no one is made to feel isolated or alone, and we take actions to include others.”

Davis added, “Join us in demonstrating that together as a community, we are stronger. I encourage you to think about how you will show up in these next days, months, and years at Trinity. The time will go quickly; make it matter.”

View the recording of the 2024 President’s Convocation and Matriculation Ceremony here and see more photos below.