Before it became a university that has been justly praised for educating low- and middle-income African American women from D.C., Trinity Washington University was Trinity College, a small Catholic liberal-arts college for women, a number of whom came from political families on the East Coast. Famous alumnae include Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, former Kansas Governor and current Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sibelius…and Cathleen Black, the newly appointed chancellor of New York City Public Schools. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence that the same institution that sent such a disproportionate number of graduates into the halls of power also made the unusual transition to pursuing a socially responsible educational mission rather than grabbing for the brass ring of exclusivity, but it’s interesting in any case.
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Carl Elliott
is a professor of bioethics at the University of Minnesota. His books include White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine.
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David P. Barash
is an evolutionary biologist, professor of psychology at the University of Washington, and author of more than 30 books, most recently Homo mysterious: evolutionary mysteries of human nature.
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Gina Barreca
is a professor of English and feminist theory at the University of Connecticut.
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Jacques Berlinerblau
is director of the Program for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University.
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Kevin Carey
is the policy director for Education Sector, an independent think tank in Washington.
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Laurie Essig
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Marc Bousquet
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Michael Ruse
directs the program in history and philosophy of science at Florida State University. His forthcoming book is Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science.
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Michele Goodwin
is a professor of law at the University of Minnesota with joint appointments at the university's medical and public-health schools.
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Todd Gitlin
is a professor of journalism and sociology and chair of the communications program at Columbia University, and a prolific author whose most recent book is a novel, Undying.
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One Response to Trinity Washington University Rules the World
11169801 - November 11, 2010 at 8:20 am
Kevin, thanks for your kind comments. In fact, we can blame it all on the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, those wise and courageous women who fought with some clerical critics to establish Trinity in 1897, and who then refused to relent one iota even when times got tough in the late 20th century. Their expectations for their students across the generations inculcated thousands of women (and some very good men today in our adult and graduate programs) with the relentless passion for justice and service to society. It’s what we grew up expecting to do as our ‘educational outcomes’ — all the money in the world wouldn’t matter if the work we alums did was not to help others. The nuns worked without salaries to make that happen — we were built on the free labor of women. In the last 25 years, as Trinity has reinvented itself to become a multi-dimensional university serving the District of Columbia and Washington region more intentionally, we’ve done it with the clarion call of the SNDs still ringing in our ears, that whatever we do must be of service to our world. That belief made it possible for Trinity to change, and the fact that we thrive today is evidence is a great credit to the faith of the SNDs and those who have shared their mission across the years. Cathie Black, Nancy Pelosi, Kathleen Sebelius and so many others are famous examples, but we have thousands of other alumnae and alumni who are unsung heroes in places all over the world.
- President Pat McGuire, Trinity ’74