From the President
One of the hallmarks of a liberal arts education is its emphasis on the whole person—elevating the mind, body, and spirit. Giving students the tools they need to balance their health and personal well-being with their social, academic, extracurricular, and professional commitments recently has become an even more important focal point for Trinity. It’s part of our holistic approach to a student experience that leads to a lifetime of success. This is especially important for our students as they learn how to build resilience, to think boldly, and to grow as engaged citizens. We recognize that achieving optimum health and wellness has a direct link—for each of us—to reaching our fullest potential.
Health and wellness as a core priority at Trinity goes back many years, and our momentum accelerated when we agreed to an unparalleled partnership with Hartford HealthCare in 2019 to provide students access to a vast array of high-quality, comprehensive health care services and sports medicine. In 2022, we expanded the partnership to include behavioral health services for students through Trinity’s Counseling and Wellness Center.
Through the Trinity Plus curriculum, our commitment to this area has never been stronger; we are creating well-rounded, transformative college experiences—maintaining the strength of our core liberal arts education while placing a new emphasis on experiential learning and student wellness. Through our innovative curriculum, our students are asked to think more about how they care for themselves, one another, and their world by requiring them within their first two years on campus to complete two wellness experiences that bolster their mental, physical, or spiritual health. While students choose their own paths, they do so with common goals: to develop skills to balance the rigors of college, to maintain a healthy lifestyle, and to engage with care.
As we continue to bolster our commitment to health and wellness through the curriculum, we’re also updating our campus facilities. Thanks to the generous support of our alumni community, we’re making good progress on the Ferris Athletic Center renovation project. In January, I was certain that I heard a collective cheer around campus and beyond with the demolition of Ferris’s Unit D (the old auxiliary gym), particularly knowing that in a little more than a year, it will be replaced by well-designed facilities to support health and wellness for the entire campus.
The renovation project not only will expand programmatic health and wellness offerings for all students, staff, and faculty but also will offer modern facilities for our high-performing scholar-athletes, coaches, and administrators.
As an aside, I love sports. In fact, as I pen this letter to you, my Bantam spirit is beaming with pride. Five of our winter sports teams—men’s and women’s basketball, men’s ice hockey, and women’s and men’s squash—appear headed toward national championships. These scholar-athletes make us all proud and exemplify the best of a well-rounded, bold Trinity education.
You may not know that I serve as vice chair of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III Presidents Council, the highest governing body in Division III and the largest of any NCAA division. During my time on this council, it has become clear that athletic competition complements the liberal arts and our Trinity Plus curriculum in many important ways. With approximately 34 percent of Trinity students competing at the varsity level in the sport they love (with many more active on our club and intramural teams), our coaches guide our scholar-athletes as they learn to think freely—and boldly—while molding themselves for the better through the highs and lows of athletic competition. They also take away important lessons and values, such as the purpose and power of inclusivity, discipline, teamwork, perseverance, leadership, and overcoming adversity. These are characteristics worth holding on to long after leaving Trinity.
Advancing health and wellness is yet another commitment to our third century.
