🔒Trinity preps for downtown Hartford campus in fall ‘17

Q&A talks with Joanne Berger-Sweeney, president of Trinity College.

Q: While a lot of focus has been on UConn's downtown Hartford campus opening in 2017, Trinity has its own center-city plans. What are they?

A: Back in the 1820s, before Trinity decided to move its campus to its present 100-acre location, the College's original site in Hartford was where the state capitol stands today. Now, almost 200 years after our founding, Trinity is actively planning to re-establish a site in Hartford's central business district, at Constitution Plaza.

Based on recent agreements reached with LHR Group and BHN Properties, which own the other properties at Constitution Plaza, Trinity will sell 200 Constitution Plaza and lease back space totaling about 21,000 square feet in 10 Constitution Plaza, a freestanding, low-rise building, and the third floor of One Constitution Plaza, an adjacent office tower.

Trinity will recoup the purchase price plus the costs of the capital improvements that we have made at 200 Constitution Plaza. We will lease prime real estate in the heart of downtown Hartford with tremendous opportunities for engagement and collaboration. While it has been almost two years since our first step toward expanding Trinity's footprint into the downtown area, we think our current plans were well worth the wait.  

We believe that Trinity's presence in the increasingly vibrant downtown will enhance the potential for collaboration among our students, staff and faculty with other institutions of higher education and local businesses and organizations in the Hartford community.

Specific uses for the space that are being considered include new and/or expanded facilities for the liberal arts action laboratory, entrepreneurship studies, and internships, as well as extended graduate and certificate programs. We intend to launch our downtown campus at Constitution Plaza in fall 2017.

Q: Can you tell us more about this liberal arts action laboratory?

A: One of the hallmarks of an excellent liberal arts education is preparing students to be active citizens, engaged in public service. One of my favorite examples of this can be found right across from Trinity's campus on Broad Street at Trinfo.Café, where we offer city residents free internet, email, and web hosting and provide classes in computer programs such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Trinity students also assist residents at the Trinfo.Café.

As part of our space at Constitution Plaza we are excited to pursue a concept for a liberal arts action laboratory. This innovative lab, modeled on a program run in Detroit in the 1970s, would offer a place where Hartford residents could bring their everyday urban problems, and our students and faculty would work to connect people to resources to help resolve their issues. The types of problems would be wide-ranging. Perhaps our students would provide assistance with computers and technology as they do at Trinfo.Café, or they could help in other ways, such as solving citizens' transportation challenges or connecting residents to social services.

Q: What other new programs is Trinity looking to add next year?

A: Trinity College and its home city of Hartford have many strengths in common, not the least of which is the extraordinarily diverse makeup of our community. In fact, one way in which we believe Trinity to be distinctive among our peer schools is that we combine the liberal arts with life in a diverse city.

Many know that Hartford has a sizable Latino population, but another excellent example of the region's vibrant diversity is that, outside of New York, Hartford has one of the largest Caribbean populations in the United States. Caribbean cultures have a broad influence on contemporary global cultures to a significant, and often unrecognized, degree. This fall, we were proud to launch the Center for Caribbean Studies at Trinity College. In doing so, we embrace the Caribbean as an area for scholarly inquiry, with a special focus on inter-Caribbean connectedness.

This new center builds on our almost 20-year study-away program, Trinity in Trinidad, through which we have a long-standing partnership with The University of the West Indies (UWI). Over the years, scores of students have participated in Trinity in Trinidad, gaining a special appreciation for and connection to Caribbean cultures.

The center will also celebrate and study the Caribbean character of the city of Hartford and will emphasize undergraduate research and internships and student-faculty scholarly projects within the liberal arts environment.