Exceeding expectations, changing the world

At Trinity University, we challenge our students. We give them the ideal environment to achieve, and when they graduate, they know that “Life is what you do with it,” a notion our bright, ambitious, and highly motivated young men and women eagerly embrace.

Trinity graduates tell us that their college education far exceeded their expectations— a fact that pushed them to exceed their own lofty goals. Our graduates earn Ph.D.s and start businesses in remarkable numbers. Others go on to leadership positions in public service, medicine, the sciences, academia, and the arts. Taking what they learn at Trinity, they change the lives of everyone around them—and change the world.

Just as their experience at Trinity teaches our students, “Life is what you do with it,” Trinity’s own future is what we do with it. Across the country, colleges and universities are adopting the Trinity model: small liberal arts colleges are adding professional programs, and large universities are creating honors colleges that focus on the liberal arts and interdisciplinary learning. We are flattered by the many institutions trying to follow our lead, but we are not content with the status quo.

That is why we are launching the Campaign for Trinity, a $200 million comprehensive campaign that will make Trinity’s impact on personal lives, higher education, and the world greater than ever before.

With philanthropic support, we can secure and strengthen for today and generations to come an educational experience that combines the best of liberal arts and professionally oriented programs. We can ensure that our dedicated professors continue to have the time and tools they need to build close relationships with their students. We can offer the kind of physical resources—from laboratories to living spaces—that bring just about any dream within reach.

Our campaign is ambitious and unprecedented. Success will require the support and participation of the entire Trinity community, including alumni, faculty, staff, friends, and neighbors in San Antonio. With our community’s love of a challenge, our graduates’ habit of achievement, and generous support from all who believe in Trinity, our goal is attainable.

These are times of great success and momentum for Trinity University. Much as the students who do so well here, Trinity constantly develops its strengths and takes full advantage of new opportunities. The world has taken notice: applications are up almost 50 percent since 2001. Though we remain true to our San Antonio roots—and are quite happy to be U.S. News & World Report’s No. 1 university of our type in the West for 14 years in a row—we compete with the best colleges and universities throughout the nation.

Trinity continues to recruit the most academically gifted and diverse students. Every Trinity graduate can take pride in the level of discussion and inquiry that animates our classrooms and laboratories and in the fact that Trinity’s student body is more diverse than ever. Thirty-four percent of our students are from out of state, and more than 22 percent are from historically underrepresented groups. The Trinity community also includes students from 22 countries, including Nepal, Thailand, Ecuador, Honduras, China, and the Netherlands.

Trinity’s students begin careers of achievement even before they leave campus. Ana Unruh ’96 was named a Rhodes Scholar in the fall of her senior year, joining an elite class of scholars and studying geology at Oxford University. Scott Schwartz ’05 received a prestigious Goldwater Scholarship in his junior year. He was the 17th Trinity student in the last decade to be so honored. This year, Trinity students David Patrick and Rachel Greer were named national Beckman Scholars—Trinity was one of only 13 colleges and universities selected to apply for these highly competitive research grants in chemistry and biology. Trinity also placed a record 135 student-athletes on the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference’s Spring 2004 Student-Athlete Academic Honor Roll—the fourth time that more than 100 Tigers qualified for the honor.

Trinity’s professors are respected scholars as well as great teachers. Our faculty are well known as extraordinary teachers. They also are among the nation’s leading scholars in the sciences, social sciences, the humanities, business, education, and the arts. For instance, the English faculty published three well-received books last year, including the third volume of Professor Norman Sherry’s highly acclaimed biography of Graham Greene; and, to cite only one other example, computer science professor Gerald Pitts has published more than 120 papers on virtual reality modeling, many of them with students listed as co-authors.

There is also extraordinary collaboration among Trinity faculty. One example: professors from the departments of biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics collaborated to win a $1 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to transform the way Trinity teaches science. These same professors were also awarded a $500,000 grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation to purchase new equipment and to support collaboration in biology and chemistry. The Hughes and Keck grants will serve as the foundation for Trinity University’s overall plan for developing the interdisciplinary study of science.

Trinity brings the world’s great thinkers to campus. Another measure of Trinity’s academic strength and reputation is the artists, thinkers, and leaders it brought to campus to address students, alumni, and San Antonians. The Trinity University Distinguished Lecture Series has hosted Colin Powell, Lech Walesa, Senator and former astronaut John Glenn, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, just to name a few. The Stieren Arts Enrichment Series has brought presentations by such literary giants as John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, and many others. For more than 20 years, Trinity’s Policy Maker Breakfast Series has presented leaders in business, politics, and current events such as John Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group, Inc.; Christine Todd Whitman, former director of the Environmental Protection Agency; and Bob Woodward, investigative reporter for the Washington Post.

Unique to Trinity is our annual lecture by a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics, a program that has included such luminaries as Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, and Paul Samuelson. The lectures are collected in a MIT Press book Lives of the Laureates, edited by Professor Barry Hirsch and Professor Emeritus William Breit and published every five years. In addition to presenting the lecture, the laureates meet informally with students. Such opportunities few colleges or universities can match.

Trinity contributes to San Antonio’s economy and culture. Working in collaboration with the City of San Antonio, the Alamo Community College District, all the school districts in Bexar County, major aerospace employers and other community partners, economics professor Richard Butler helped establish the Alamo Area Aerospace Academy, which trains local high school students for well-paying jobs in San Antonio’s emerging aerospace industry. The success of the Aerospace Academy has led to the creation of the Information Technology and Security Academy and the Manufacturing Technology Academy to provide similar career development paths for the information technology and manufacturing industries. Similiar academies are planned for the future.

Trinity has a longstanding investment in San Antonio public schools. Our nationally recognized teacher education program is conducted in partnership with educators from selected elementary and secondary schools, a partnership that not only produces some of the best teachers in the country, but improves schools in our community. The University recently was awarded a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to encourage and prepare talented math and science majors at Trinity to become public school teachers in Texas.

Trinity’s “Economists in the Schools” program sends our students into local elementary and high schools to act as resources for classroom teachers. Through the Trinity University Volunteer Action Community, our students provide thousands of hours of service to San Antonio’s schools, hospitals, and community programs.

The University is a leading cultural force as well. Radio station KRTU, with nearly 30,000 listeners, is the voice of jazz in San Antonio—and one of the few remaining jazz stations in the nation. In addition, Trinity’s many high quality musical, theatrical, and artistic presentations, as well as the Coates Library, are available to the public.

The Trinity campus is a nationally recognized learning environment. Trinity has invested significant resources and effort to distinguish the campus and the learning environment with advanced digital technology. The Coates Library is a leader in the use of information technologies, our network is state of the art, our digital laboratories and classrooms are extensive and at the most advanced level. The Princeton Review in collaboration with Forbes Magazine ranked Trinity in the top tier of “America’s Most Connected Colleges,” and an Intel Corporation survey ranked Trinity among the top 100 “Most Unwired” campuses, recognizing the extent of the campus wireless network.

One of the most visible symbols of Trinity’s quality is the new Northrup Hall, designed by renowned artchitect Robert A. M. Stern. In addition to providing much-needed classrooms, seminar rooms, and modern academic and administrative office space to our campus, this $21 million building has received rave reviews from architecture critics. As part of the Northrup construction, the entrance to campus was reconfigured and Miller Fountain was relocated to a beautiful, intimate amphitheater at the west end of the building.

If it is encouraging to reflect upon Trinity’s progress, and if it is important to remember the value of our mission, it is imperative that we continue to move forward with enthusiasm and vigor. And leap forward we must. Trinity’s reputation as one of the nation’s top undergraduate universities is well earned; but what has been earned can be lost, and what is yet to be built could become forgotten dreams. The forces that demand we move forward or lose ground are real and pressing. The world is changing quickly, and the demands of educating tomorrow’s leaders and difference-makers have grown enormously. If Trinity is to maintain the quality of its faculty, facilities, and programs, and pursue bold new ideas to meet the needs of the 21st century, our endowment must grow. For that reason, building endowment will be the campaign’s top priority. Endowed funds are the lifeblood for institutions like Trinity. Fundraising emphasis in recent years has been successful in providing students with the very best in campus facilities; however, Trinity’s endowment has not kept pace with its peers nor with its desire to innovate and sustain its programs. Acting now will help Trinity effect deeper change in the lives of our students and will better our world for generations to come.

The funds required to fully realize all of Trinity’s aspirations exceed what can be raised in any one campaign, but this campaign will take a significant step toward those dreams and inspire new ones. The comprehensive goals of the campaign include:

“There has never been a better time to launch a campaign for Trinity,” says Trinity Trustee James Dicke ’68. “Our financial plan is sound, our leadership is strong, and we have a long track record of being a responsible steward of gifts. Few investments are backed with that kind of security—and fewer still have the potential to pay such handsome and meaningful rewards.”

“I am constantly impressed by the students who come to Trinity. Their talent, their curiosity, their motivation, their sense of teamwork, leadership, and community, are humbling. We want to continue to attract the most talented students based on their ability to do the work, not their ability to pay.”—President John Brazil

Opening doors with increased financial aid endowment

More and more talented high school students are putting Trinity on their college “A” list. But as Trinity’s tuition has risen (as has that of every other college and university), many of our brightest prospects are forced to choose between the education that is best for them and the education they can afford. Many who do choose Trinity face daunting student loan debt when they graduate, limiting the very opportunities for which Trinity has prepared them. By increasing funds for financial aid, we can open doors for new generations of Trinity students and ensure that no dream has to be deferred.

Raising the bar with a Top Scholars program

Trinity attracts bright, adaptive students and provides them with a supportive culture that fosters academic achievement. That culture can be further enhanced by recruiting students of extraordinarily high academic ability who can energize the classroom and inspire their peers. A Top Scholars program will include four-year awards that will help us attract these students.

Supporting the Trinity Annual Fund

As the campaign moves forward, we will work to elevate our Annual Fund to new heights. Gifts to the Annual Fund help meet the University’s pressing critical needs and are essential to every department and every program on campus. They help pay for scholarships and financial aid for deserving students, purchase library books, laboratory equipment, new teaching and learning resources, help keep faculty salaries competitive, and fund new academic programs.

“Alumni response to our annual fund efforts has grown—but we can do so much more. Trinity is one of the nation’s great universities, and it deserves our support.”—Michael Bacon, ’89, President, Trinity University Alumni Association

“When alumni talk about how Trinity has contributed to their success, the faculty are a recurring theme. Almost without fail, there was a professor whose enthusiasm for his or her subject pointed the way toward a possible career, or whose constant challenge and encouragement caused a student to set his or her sights a little higher.”—Professor Char Miller

Supporting the scholarship that makes our professors better teachers

Trinity’s distinctive brand of dedication—as embodied in legendary teachers such as Don Everett, Albert Herff-Beze, and Frances Hendricks—is still very much in force on campus today. The high quality teaching and advising Trinity provides its students has consistently earned the University high rankings by credible national sources such as Kaplan/Newsweek College Catalog, which placed us among the top three colleges in the nation for individual attention from faculty.

But our professors’ commitment to being engaging, effective teachers is only part of what makes them so special. They are also engaged in ambitious and creative research and scholarship that make important contributions to understanding ourselves and our world. By keeping them actively engaged in their disciplines and raising vital, relevant questions, research and scholarship also make our professors better teachers. Increasingly, faculty members involve students in their own research projects, providing invaluable opportunities for hands-on learning.

Campaign funding will strengthen this important dynamic by creating new Senior Professorships, which acknowledge the accomplishments of senior professors by providing them with supplemental research funds and stipends. The campaign also seeks to provide fellowships for junior and mid-level professors to help energize the research agendas of our rising academic stars and generate substantial support for collaborative student-faculty research.

Enhanced support for faculty research will also enable us to retain the best and brightest faculty.

Creating new opportunities for student-faculty interaction

The kind of student-faculty interaction that defines the Trinity experience takes more than dedication—it takes time and energy. Trinity has a student-to-faculty ratio of 10:1, one of the lowest in the nation, so professors can really know their students. By adding five new faculty positions to our most popular programs and departments, we will be able to sustain the level of personal interaction and commitment that makes the Trinity experience so conducive to student success.

“Trinity’s convention-defying embrace of both liberal arts and professional programs and its growing focus on team-based, project-centered, interdisciplinary learning have made it the model for how the liberal arts will be taught in the future. We are leading the way.”—Professor Jorge Gonzalez

Re-envisioning Trinity

The Trinity experience is built on a flexible, interdisciplinary curriculum that allows our motivated students considerable independence in shaping their education. President Brazil recently challenged our faculty and department heads to develop a plan to make our curriculum the most effective in the country. They responded with “Re-envisioning Trinity,” a series of initiatives that meets the demands of a global society and capitalizes on Trinity’s strengths: talented students driven by curiosity and ambition; world-class professors committed to teaching and scholarship; a distinctive mix of liberal arts and professional programs; and our location in San Antonio. The following are among many enhancements and improvements called for in “Re-envisioning Trinity”:

“Trinity students are really excited about the new Northrup Hall, partly for the aesthetic quality it adds to campus, but even more so because it serves as a symbol of the University’s longstanding commitment to being one of the finest undergraduate institutions in the nation.” —Bryan Henderson ‘05

Trinity’s campus is the physical manifestation of the University’s commitment to students. Our modern residence halls, handsome red brick buildings, and tree-lined walkways are meticulously maintained. Our learning and research facilities—including the Image Acquisition and Analysis Facility, the Keck Design Center, and the new Information Commons in Coates Library—give students hands-on access to the tools they will use and environments they will encounter in the working world. The following initiatives will allow Trinity to maintain its standard of excellence for campus facilities and anticipate the living and learning needs of future students.

Enhancing our students’ “second homes”

Residence halls are the place where friendships are forged and leadership skills nurtured. They also play a key role in student recruitment and satisfaction and can be a powerful incentive for upperclassmen to remain on campus and engaged in student life. Trinity is proud to have the kind of residence halls that exemplify and encourage a sense of community—in fact, parents of prospective students often say that the residence halls speak volumes about the Trinity experience. Endowment funds will ensure that the University can always maintain and upgrade its residence halls and offer students the very best home away from home.

Staying ahead of the technological curve

From multimedia scientific and business presentations to cell phones that send and receive e-mail, digital technology has become a permanent yet ever-changing fixture in the world our students enter after graduation. Technology has eliminated the constraints of time and space on learning, and both professors and students weigh access to technology quite heavily when deciding where to teach and study. Trinity is a recognized leader when it comes to digital resources. Our wireless Internet network and the growing number of professors who integrate technology into their lectures and assignments have made Trinity among the most advanced campuses in the nation.

Technology, however, becomes outdated at an increasingly rapid rate. For instance, our wireless network has already been upgraded three times. Campaign funding will allow us to keep pace with the rate of technological change, create a new technology center in Coates Library, and ensure that our students and faculty have access to the most helpful teaching and learning enhancements that technology can provide.

Strengthening our athletic programs and recreational facilities

A successful athletic program is a vital part of the Trinity experience. Not only is it a critical recruiting tool—many of today’s students have grown up with organized athletics and expect to continue playing in college—it is an important pedagogical tool. “We expect student-athletes to excel and win,” says Trinity athletic director Bob King, “and they take that winning attitude with them to the classroom and the workplace.” Trinity athletes do win. Trinity’s 18 men’s and women’s teams have brought home five NCAA championship trophies in the past 10 years.

But the real story is how Trinity wins. We compete in NCAA Division III, which means that our students do not receive athletic scholarships. Every student-athlete, no matter how physically gifted, must demonstrate the same academic drive and ability as the rest of the student body. In many cases they exceed that standard. Trinity’s student-athletes have GPAs and retention rates as high or higher than their non-student-athlete peers. Women’s basketball standout Megan Selmon ’03 is an excellent example. A double-major in Spanish and International Studies, she missed the first half of the 2003 season while studying abroad on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, only to return and lead her team to the NCAA Division III national title.

But just as academic success requires the best libraries, laboratories, and research facilities, athletic success requires modern, well-maintained fields and equipment. Campaign funding for athletics will ensure that our teams, programs, and facilities remain the very best.

“Trinity changed my life, and I am certain it has changed the way I interact with the world,” says Lissa Walls Vahldiek ’80, Chairman of Trinity’s Board of Trustees. “Our students want to be part of a community that is supportive and encourages achievement. That is a legacy I want to pass on to the next generation—and I am sure the rest of the Trinity community feels the same way.”

Trinity is showing the world the value of a purposeful education. Our forward thinking integration of professional and liberal arts programs provides a model for other colleges and universities. Our alumni—through the children they teach, the businesses they found, the discoveries they make, and the art they create—are having a national impact on our culture and quality of life. It is exactly that kind of impact that the campaign is meant to amplify.

Trinity has momentum. Sustaining that momentum and shaping a future of preeminence will require all those who care about it to be even more generous. Just as we present our students with possibilities and challenge them to realize those possibilities, so we ask our supporters to help realize a possibility—a Trinity that is stronger, more innovative, and more effective than ever.

August 22, 2005