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President's Speeches & Writing Archive | New Year’s Message, 2007

New Year’s Message

To: The Trinity Community

From: President Patricia McGuire

Re: New Year’s Day 2007

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!


Patricia A. McGuire, President, Trinity, 125 Michigan Ave. NE, Washington, DC 20017
Phone: 202.884.9050   Email: president@trinitydc.edu

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