As we near the end of the academic year, we want to take a moment to reflect — openly and honestly — with you, the students we are honored to serve.
This year has been challenging for many. No matter your role on campus, as a student, faculty member, staff member or administrator, you may have felt the weight of uncertainty and been overwhelmed at times. And while difficult moments can shape a university’s history, they also reveal opportunities to strengthen our own value-based practices, such as transparency, accountability, empathy and connection.
To that end, we want to acknowledge that we, the university administration, have not always done the best job communicating with our student body. Whether in times of rapid change or adjustments to day-to-day operations, we’ve sometimes fallen short of keeping you informed in the best ways possible. That’s on us, and we are committed to doing better.
More specifically, we are working to improve the ways we engage and communicate with you, our students. Beginning with this piece and at the kind invitation of the Trinitonian editor-in-chief, we’re launching a monthly column in these pages. Whether it’s a guest column like this or a dialogue written in a Q&A format, you’ll be hearing from us and/or other members of the administration on a more regular basis next year. Our goals are to provide updates, demystify decisions and sometimes simply just to share what’s on our minds.
What we are not interested in doing is interfering with our student journalists, other guest columnists and the freedom of expression critical to independent student media. We appreciate the work it takes to research, write and produce the Trinitonian. We value the learning that happens in student journalism, and we support its role in fostering open expression, asking hard questions, providing nuanced analyses and making space for a range of perspectives, especially when people disagree.
Free expression is one of the cornerstones of a liberal arts education. It’s also the foundation of a thriving, thoughtful community. It comes with responsibilities, of course.
As we have tried to improve communication around the most difficult of topics, we have been reminded time and again of the value and richness of dialogue in person. Whether at our dining tables or in conference rooms, the experience of discussing with one another, rather than talking past one another, has helped us to appreciate the importance of our rights — especially, your rights as students — to inquiry and expression. We have been moved by the candor, vulnerability, honesty and grace shared with us by so many students as they have enacted these rights. Our faculty and staff, particularly those in Student Affairs, know all too well the emotional and intellectual energy you have invested in these conversations. Your commitments to dialogue make our university a better place.
Given our understanding that this is the last issue of the Trinitonian during this academic year, we want to conclude by saying thank you. Thank you for showing up for one another. For offering both the critique and encouragement we all need. For taking time for rest or even joy when things get to be too much. For doing what you do in your coursework, in labs and the library, on stage and in studio, on athletic fields, in student organizations, in campus leadership roles and in conversation with each other and with us. Thank you for saying yes to our invitations to talk and listen. We cherish time spent with you, especially when we are fortunate enough to spend it with you in person.
On that note, we are reminded of the students who were recently outside of Coates Library asking passers-by the simple question: “What gives you hope in uncertain times?” Folks wrote their answers on sticky notes; the last time we saw the collection, it was in Dicke Hall, outside of the Humanities Collective’s space. It was inspiring to read what was shared. For our part, the answer is simple: You. Students. Students give us hope.
Because the future of Trinity is not just about strategic planning. More than that, it is about people and the remarkable opportunities we have to learn from each other on this campus. Thank you for what you have taught us this year.
