Thanksgiving Message to the Trinity Community

Dear students, faculty, staff and friends in the Trinity family:

Thanksgiving 2002 comes at a time of much joy for Trinity, much concern for our nation and world. For what shall we give thanks this year?

Last Saturday, as more than 500 members of Trinity's vast extended family to celebrate the new life symbolized in the Trinity Center, I thought about how fortunate we are to have this great College as a true alma mater in our lives. Oh, sure, there are days when the fallible side of this human community seems quite overwhelming --- studies are very hard, disagreements multiply, things just don't work very well. But the true measure of the community is not the absence of difficulties, but rather, how well we manage them while continuing to build this community with our shared values of faith and charity, justice and hope, integrity and peace.

Surely, we can give thanks for the community of Trinity and the gifts of learning, friendship, challenge and personal fulfillment that studying and working here afford to each of us. We give thanks for our students and faculty, whose work together in the learning enterprise is the whole point of our mission. We also give thanks for the very hard working staff of the College who are here at all hours of the day and night to ensure the safety and well-being of the community.

Of course, we give special thanks, as we have all week, for the Trinity Center and those who designed and built this magnificent athletic complex. The architects, construction manager and subcontractors represent hundreds of thousands of labor hours over more than three years to make this building a reality. We also are deeply grateful to the many alumnae and benefactors whose charitable gifts totally nearly $11 million to date made the Center possible. We are grateful for the leadership of our Alumnae Association and our Trustees, and for all of the volunteers who devote countless hours to spreading the good news about Trinity in their various places of work, communities, schools and neighborhoods.

We give thanks for the parents, spouses, families and friends who support our students, and for the many friends and partners of Trinity in the Washington community who are helping us to make this College even stronger.

Our gratitude to the Sisters of Notre Dame is immense, for founding and building Trinity, and for continuing to keep us faithful to our mission.

We show our gratitude to the SNDs and to Trinity through the ways in which we manifest our values and mission to the world. Our concern these days for sustaining justice in this nation and peace throughout the globe is immense. There is no better way to give thanks for what Trinity has given to us than by using the gifts and talents of this education as a force for good, a voice for reason, a model of hope in these perilous times.

Many thanks to each of you for living the mission of Trinity so well in so many ways. Enjoy the holidays, travel safely, and may our students return rested and ready for those final exams! Good luck!

With gratitude,

President Patricia McGuire '74