New Year's Message
To: The Trinity Community
From: President Patricia McGuire
Re: New Year’s Day 2006
Happy New Year to everyone in our extended Trinity family! I hope
the holiday season was a time of rest and renewal for you.
Each new year starts with new resolutions --- small but meaningful
expressions of hope that we can truly measure our progress toward
important goals. What resolutions should we make together as the
Trinity community? Please take a minute to drop me a message by
reply to this email --- president@trinitydc.edu --- let me know what
resolutions you think we should make together for the sake of
improving the effectiveness of Trinity’s mission to our world. I’ll
include them in my blog next week.
I’m starting this new year resolving to offer more thanks more often
for all of the great work so many faculty, staff, students, alumnae
and alumni, benefactors, trustees and friends do for Trinity. As
2006 drew to a close, I took some time to recall all of Trinity’s
many accomplishments during the last 12 months, and that long list
prompts me to extend thanks, once again, to everyone who helped to
advance Trinity’s vital mission to our world.
2007 dawns with a renewed sense of urgency for Trinity’s mission in
a world that needs our graduates in so many places. The Middle
States visiting team that reviewed Trinity for our accreditation in
2006 extolled Trinity’s great devotion to mission, and encouraged us
to find new ways to ensure that our mission retains its vitality and
freshness for each succeeding generation.
Our relentless efforts to improve and strengthen Trinity --- in our
curricula and programs, in our facilities and technology, in our
resources to support students and faculty --- are not for our own
pleasure, but rather, to ensure that this learning community can
continue to inspire, indeed, inflame new generations of courageous
leaders for communities all over the globe.
This week, as Nancy Pelosi ’62 takes the oath of office to be the
first woman Speaker of the House, Trinity will revel in the
achievements of our extraordinary alumna. But the state of the world
is perilous, and we must temper our celebration with the insistence
that the occasional extraordinary achievements of singular women are
not nearly enough to sustain the social changes that must occur for
justice and peace to prevail throughout the global village. We need
legions of women and men possessing the intellectual talent,
capacity for sustained hard work, and deeply passionate commitment
to transforming communities, states and nations.
2007 will be the 110th anniversary of Trinity’s founding --- in
these eleven decades, Trinity has been a vital source of
intellectual inspiration and lifelong guidance for thousands of
teachers, policymakers and other professionals, parents and
families, and countless others whose lives were touched by Trinity
alumnae and alumni.
This year will present new opportunities for Trinity to enlarge the
scope of our historic influence, particularly in teaching, in the
health professions, and in public service. With the D.C. Schools,
Trinity is exploring new ways to expand teacher education,
particularly in under-served neighborhoods east of the river.
Trinity’s new Nursing Program will soon offer a full range of
degrees and credentials from pre-licensure through master’s level
programs. The Nursing Program’s expansion will draw heavily on the
talents of faculty in the sciences, among others. Programs in
Political Science, International Affairs and related programs will
continue to collaborate on applied experiences that will translate
Trinity’s slogan “Education for Global Leadership” into specific
opportunities for student learning and networking. Curricular
reforms in the College of Arts and Sciences as well as the School of
Professional Studies are focusing more sharply than ever on the
skills and frameworks of knowledge that today’s students must have
to be successful leaders in the future.
These initiatives, part of our new strategic plan Achieving Trinity
2010, will ensure that Trinity’s faculty, students and graduates
continue to accomplish the kind of transformative work that has
characterized Trinity’s social impact for the last century.
At the same time as we maintain a clear and specific focus on
developing Trinity’s curricula and programs, we are mindful of the
great need to sustain and improve the teaching and learning
environment on campus. Achieving Trinity 2010 continues the
strategic focus on acquiring technology and improving facilities
necessary to support the academic enterprise. Toward that end, in
February, I will be presenting Trinity’s new Campus Master Plan to
the D.C. Zoning Commission. We will also have occasions for the
campus community to learn more about the master plan as we prepare
to launch a new capital campaign to support facilities development.
By the end of 2007, we intend to have the Campaign for Trinity 2010
underway, with clear priorities for a new University Academic
Center, improvements in existing facilities and more support for
student scholarships.
By the way, speaking of facilities improvements --- over the
Christmas break we had an extraordinary number of facilities
projects going on, and you will see or experience some of the
differences when school start in mid-January. Among the many
projects:
- Kerby Hall: complete replacement of the boilers and chiller for
improved heat and air conditioning
- Alumnae Hall: renovation of the servery, kitchen and improvements in
the dining halls to improve the dining experience
- Main Hall: repair and replacement of drains and gutters all along
the big roofline… a huge project!
Many thanks to Rich Greco and the Facilities Services Team (and
Aramark and Sodexho) for undertaking these major projects.
Resolved: to get the 2007 agenda done! There’s much work ahead, but
with the great women and men of Trinity focused on our goals, we
know we can succeed.
Don’t forget --- send me your emails suggesting resolutions we can
make together this year. I’ll include them in my blog next week.
Happy New Year! |
