News from First Board of Trustees Meeting this Fall

by Rebecca Cassel-Siskind ’26

Contributing Writer

Just over a week ago, we had our first Board of Trustees meeting for the 2022-2023 school year. These meetings give a chance for others to see Trinity’s excellence, and it gives our Trinity community a chance to express our gratitude to the Board of Trustees. This year we were excited to welcome five new trustees to our Trinity community.

The visit was divided into two parts. To begin, trustees invited students, faculty, and staff to join them on the morning of Friday, October 14th at Peter B’s Coffeehouse here on campus. This served as an informal meet-andgreet before the formal meeting the following day. In the future, they encourage all members of the Trinity community to feel free to attend and participate in future opportunities like this one.

Saturday, October 15th, the official meeting was held. President and Professor of Neuroscience Joanne Berger-Sweeney began her opening update by speaking about what it means to “lead in a time of consequence.” As they plan to celebrate Trinity’s 200th birthday next year, they want to continue planning progress for our Trinity College community because what they plan for today and tomorrow will set the precedent for the next century here. She highlighted the 24 new tenure-track majority people of color faculty members and the positive response to Trinity’s five-year interim report by The New English Commission of Higher Education (NECHE).

Throughout the rest of the Board of Trustees Meeting, they focused on race in admissions and the upcoming cases in the Supreme Court. There were speakers such as Kevin McMahon, William F. Lee, and Lee Coffin, among others, who gave deeply enlightening talks about the current Supreme Court.

A highlight of the board meeting had to do with the fall enrollment update. This fall, with the highest incoming academic rate in the college’s history, Trinity welcomed 563 new first-year students and 27 transfer students. This bunch comes from 38 countries, 34 states and Washington D.C.— adding so much to our Bantam community.

In their comprehensive fundraising effort, which is currently in its leadership phase, they’ve reached $286M towards a goal of $500M. One focus that they have this year is looking for matching commitments to the $20M Schuler Foundation grant for financial aid that was announced earlier this summer. Financial support to the academic program, athletics, chapel renovation, and student life were highlighted as were other core campaign priorities that they are working on.

Vice President for Strategic Marketing and Communications Hellen Hom-Diamond and Associate Dean for Curriculum Mitch Polin gave an interesting update on our bicentennial celebration set to kick off on May 5th, 2023. The celebration will be year-long and include both on- and off-campus alumni events, digital engagement for the whole community, and more.

Altogether it seemed as though the October Board of Trustees meeting was filled with fascinating conversations, exciting new events, valuable advancements, and so much more. I’d like to thank President and Professor of Neuroscience Joanne Berger-Sweeney with exciting updates and fascinating points that keeps our Trinity College community in the loop.