Major Declaration Day returns to Trinity’s Magic Stones today, Friday, Feb 23, from 3-4 p.m. to transcend the success of last year’s first event. Focused on improving upon the previous year, Academic Affairs and Student Affairs look to host a better celebration with a new location at the Magic Stones. To do this, they founded a new committee to lead the event’s planning in the coming years.
Trinity students are not required to declare their major until the end of their second year, and Major Declaration Day celebrates this next step toward their overall graduation. Transitioning students to a specific major and a new advisor, the event features every academic department, numerous major pennants, food and festivities.
Mindy Tran Champion, assistant director for orientation and transitions, has led the planning for the event since Oct. 2023. As a double Trinity alum who graduated with both an undergraduate and masters degree, Champion values the university’s community and traditions and hopes that Major Declaration Day will continue for years to come.
“This is just an amazing moment to realize that you do love this major enough to declare it,” Champion said. “[I]t’s just so fun to be a part of that community. So finally being able to say ‘I’m a theatre major,’ and hold up the theatre pennant and be in that space with all your other theatre majors.”
As a part of the promotion for the event last year, Trinity highlighted the stories of several sophomores on social media platforms as they officially declared their majors. Blaine Martin took this opportunity to declare a political science and international relations double-major. Martin expressed his enjoyment of the festivities during his time at the event.
“What I really liked about Major Declaration Day was the pennants,” Martin said. “The pennants made everyone feel special. I don’t have my pennants with me right now, but I kept them and it really solidified this is what I wanted to [do]. And it made me feel worthwhile to have the head of the department come out and actually express how grateful they were.”
Major Declaration Day sprung out of a response to the COVID pandemic, originally done unofficially on a smaller scale. As the office of academic advising felt that many experiences and traditions had been taken away from those declaring in spring 2022, they threw a celebration that would set the groundwork for the first official Major Declaration Day in 2023. Lapetra Bowman, director of academic advising, saw the success of the initial gathering and began discussions with her colleagues to replicate it going forward.
“It only seeks to strengthen who we are as a community here at Trinity University,” Bowman said. “One of the things I love about being part of the Trinity family is that we are a very close-knit community, and our work with students is very interconnected. So this is an event for any staff, faculty, campus partner of any kind, and student, other students [interested] to come and celebrate a particular cohort of students who have or are prepared to declare that particular given semester, and it’s an opportunity for us to come together as a collective.”
With the potential to become a Trinity tradition, Major Declaration Day aims to build up Trinity’s community by allowing students to meet with others within their own majors or potential majors. Regardless of where they may be in their Trinity experience, the momentous occasion of declaring one’s major is now accompanied by a tangible celebration.
“I would wholeheartedly tell someone to [go to] Major Declaration Day because I feel like, especially being in international affairs or in our poli sci or even like the Spanish minor, I really don’t know who else has the same major as me,” Martin said. “All [of] Major Declaration Day, we all come together in that one moment to say ‘This is what I’m interested in.’ So then, at that point, you can make more connections with people in ways that you can have imagined before.”