General Information

Trinity College in Washington, D.C., is dedicated to meeting the educational needs of women of all ages. At the graduate level, Trinity offers master's degree programs to both women and men. Founded in 1897 by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Trinity is one of the nation's first Catholic colleges for women. One hundred years later, the College continues the founders' commitment to offer students of all faiths a quality academic program, a value-centered education, and a focus on the intellectual development of each student.

Trinity College is empowered by charter to grant undergraduate and graduate degrees. Academic programs are divided into two areas: the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Professional Studies. By selecting a course of study in one of the two areas, undergraduates may earn a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science. Graduate students may choose from programs leading to the Master of Arts, the Master of Arts in Teaching, the Master of Education, or the Master of Science in Administration.

Trinity's undergraduate program offers the bachelor's degree to women through its Weekday and Weekend Programs. Students benefit from an interdisciplinary liberal arts program that prepares them for a lifetime of career opportunities, and a learning environment committed to developing the leadership skills of women. The Foundation for Leadership Curriculum in the Weekday Program and the Core Curriculum in the Weekend Program combine a foundation of knowledge with practical experiences and professional focus. Trinity offers students many resources, including a faculty dedicated to teaching, individual academic advisors, Trinity's Advising, Computer, Writing, and Academic Support and Career Services Centers, a wide choice of internships for academic credit, and the many opportunities available in the nation's capital.

Trinity's graduate program offers master's degrees to both women and men in the areas of management, community health promotion, counseling, student development in higher education, curriculum and instruction, educational administration, and teaching. The graduate programs integrate theory and knowledge with skills and practical applications. Trinity also offers professional development workshops to area educators.

The Trinity Center for Women in Public Policy brings together students, scholars, teachers, and policymakers to focus on the expanding role of women in a broad range of public policy issues, including health care, the environment, poverty, and education. This nonpartisan academic center offers lectures, workshops, and conferences that explore public policy issues affecting women and sponsors leadership development programs.

Founding and Accreditation

At the time of Trinity's founding in 1897, only men were educated by Catholic colleges. Trinity College was established to offer equivalent educational opportunities to women of all faiths. Many women and men worked together to achieve this goal, but the principal driving force was Sr. Julia McGroarty, Provincial Superior of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, a religious community founded by Sr. Julie Billiart in early 19th-century France. Their congregation currently consists of about 3,000 sisters in Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, and South America. In addition to a variety of other works, they help support colleges in the United Kingdom, Japan, and the United States.

Trinity's management and business concerns are vested in a Board of Trustees numbering not fewer than nine nor more than 30 members. At least one-third plus one of the board's membership is drawn from the congregation of the Sisters of Notre Dame, and at least one-third of the board members are alumnae of Trinity. The faculty and the student body each elect two nonvoting representatives to the board. Responsibility for formulating and recommending academic policies and programs rests primarily with the faculty, and final decisions are made by standing committees that often include representatives of the administration, the faculty, and the student body.

Incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia in 1897, Trinity College was empowered by Act of Congress to confer degrees. Its legal title is "Trinity College, Washington D.C." The College is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. Both the graduate and undergraduate programs are accredited by the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education Certification (NASDTEC).

Trinity is a member of the Washington Consortium, which consists of 11 universities (American, Catholic, Gallaudet, George Washington, George Mason, Georgetown, Howard, Marymount, Southeastern, the University of the District of Columbia, and the University of Maryland, College Park), and one college (Trinity).

Trinity is among the 10% of the nation's colleges and universities to be granted a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa -- the country's oldest academic honor society. Trinity's chapter was established in 1971.

Toward Trinity 2000: A Strategic Plan To Launch A New Trinity Century

Building on its strong foundations, the College now looks forward to a new century -- for Trinity and the world in which we live. Toward Trinity 2000: A Strategic Plan to Launch a New Trinity Century, the result of three years of campus dialogue, was approved by the Board of Trustees, and provides the vision and roadmap for the future of the College.

The first six goals of the strategic plan -- the mission goals -- reflect the vision and its translation into programs for the future of Trinity:

Goal One:

Empowerment for Life Roles addresses Trinity's mission to empower women to achieve success in their many roles in life, through strong leadership skills, broad knowledge, and competence in all pursuits. This goal recognizes that Trinity's mission can be achieved through a wide variety of programs, undergraduate and graduate and even pre-college, serving students of all ages.

Goal Two:

Foundations in Liberal Learning stresses the essential foundation of the liberal arts as the philosophical platform for the empowerment expressed in Goal One. This goal also embraces Trinity's integrated view of learning from the broad base in the liberal arts to the specialized disciplines of the professions, thus enabling Trinity to define with greater clarity her own historic curricular continuum from undergraduate through graduate studies.

Goal Three:

A Community of Faith, Justice and Honor clearly states Trinity's deep and abiding commitment to those moral and spiritual values that emanate from the Catholic tradition and that are shared by the many faith traditions present on campus, reaffirming the centrality of faith and worship in the academic community, reinforcing the necessity of living faith through service, and rededicating the campus community to the principles of the Honor System.

Goal Four:

Commitment to the Education of Women states a theme that, much like Goal Three's affirmation of faith values, is implicit in all of the other goals, namely, that the mission and programs of Trinity are primarily dedicated to the development of women in preparation for their work in public and private life. A primary commitment to women, however, does not exclude men entirely, as the presence of men in the graduate program and in residence on campus attests. This goal speaks to the primary commitment to women in language and with an intent that is inclusive and affirmative, not isolated or negative.

Goal Five:

Diversity and Community also addresses an identity that is implicit in all goals for Trinity, namely, the fact that the ideal of the "Trinity community" embraces all races, cultures, religions, languages, ages, and socioeconomic backgrounds, drawing all Trinity women together with a common sense of purpose rooted in the belief in human dignity and determination to act that grows stronger with intellectual attainment and leadership development.

Goal Six:

Centers of Academic Distinction calls for Trinity to develop a specific reputation for excellence in select fields, emanating from the College's own curricular strengths. The centers that Trinity seeks to develop include the Trinity Center for Women in Public Policy, the Clare Boothe Luce Program in Mathematics and Natural Science, Urban Teacher Preparation, and Lay Leadership in the Church.

Achieving the six mission goals of Toward Trinity 2000 will require resources equal to the ambition of the College's vision for the future. The resource goals of the strategic plan outline the resource development strategies in six areas: Finances, Enrollment Development, Institutional Advancement, Human Resources, Quality of Campus Life, and Facilities. Highlights of the resource goals include an increase in all enrollments and the successful planning, implementation, and completion of a capital campaign for facilities and technology development.

Trinity's Campus

Trinity's 26-acre wooded campus, located on Michigan Avenue at Franklin Street, is in a residential neighborhood just two-and-one-half miles north of the United States Capitol, and easily accessible. Trains to Washington, D.C., arrive at Union Station, which is just minutes from Trinity, and National Airport is only 20 minutes away. By car, Trinity can be reached by all major routes into Washington, D.C. In addition, Trinity operates a shuttle to the nearby Brookland/CUA Metrorail station, and Metrobuses stop directly in front of the campus.

Trinity's facilities are housed in seven buildings. The Main Building, begun in 1899 and completed in 1909, houses all administrative offices, most classrooms and faculty offices, the post office, the campus bookstore, meeting rooms and lounges, and a residence hall. The Science Building houses classrooms, laboratories, and faculty offices for Trinity's science programs, as well as the Computer Center. The Sister Helen Sheehan Library has a collection of approximately 150,000 volumes on open shelves. In addition to the Main Building, there are three residence halls: Cuvilly, Kerby, and Alumnae; Alumnae Hall also houses the campus dining facilities. Notre Dame Chapel, dedicated in 1924, won the 1925 Gold Medal for ecclesiastical architecture.

Access for Individuals With Disabilities

Trinity College is committed to making the facilities and services of the campus accessible to those with disabilities through reasonable accommodations. Specific requests regarding access should be directed to the Office of Admissions (for prospective students) or the Dean of Student Services (for enrolled students and visitors). Trinity's compliance officer for the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act is the Director of Human Resources.