One of the items I’ve been working on with the SGA is trying to find creative ways to foster student-faculty interaction outside of the classroom. Obviously, a major benefit of attending a small, liberal arts college like Trinity is the expanded opportunity it provides for students to converse with professors both in and out of the classroom. Although we have some ideas that we’re currently exploring, any additional suggestions on this topic would definitely be welcome. Please let us know!

Dear Trinity friends ,

We would like to invite you to partake in Hillel’s first ever Date Auction. This March we will be taking a group of students on a community service Alternative Spring Break to Argentina. What better way to raise money than showcasing the talents of Trinity individuals while bringing our College community together?

We will be auctioning off individuals, pairs, or groups for cooking dates, sports lessons, lunches, cleaning, and any other appropriate activity you can think of!

Our auction will take place Saturday, November 15th at 8:30pm and all bidding will begin at $1.00.

Please share this information with your House/Organization/Greek affiliation so members can join in and be auctioned! Please let us know what you’d like to be auctioned off as (What type of date) and with who (if you’d like to be a pair or group.) by Thursday, November 6th.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact Leeba at Leeba.Morse@trincoll.edu, Isabella at Isabella.Glaser@trincoll.edu, or Jocelyn at Jocelyn.Schur@trincoll.edu

We’d love to have you be apart of our event!

Thank you!

Recently, I met with Colleen E. Stewart who is in charge managing ACIS (Locknetics) at our college to discuss in depth the details of residence hall access, especially as relating to entry by code instead of simply ID card. Declaring that access by codes instead of ID card would not be enacted, she stated that the main reason for this had to do with security, to the loss of convenience. Apparently, until 2002, there had been exterior building access using codes as well as card readers with magnetic stripes. However, there had been many reports of people being reckless with codes and sharing them with others, including people not even in the school despite the warning that such actions were strictly inadvisable. One incident in particular cited was that of an individual who gave the code to a “beau” and ended up having that particular code revealed across campus to quite a few people (I am not revealing the specifics). It seems that one or a few people spoiled it for everyone. In support this, statistics were also revealed that about 20-25 codes are replaced/reset per month due to complaints of compromise and “mistaken sharing”. Of course, the idea of sharing codes on this level, since codes can actually simply be passed on by word of mouth, email, or text, is one that is completely unappealing. The ACIS manager said that one of the main reasons that ID cards are required is that they can not exactly be shared easily, since they require physical presence for the proximity reader to work not just a numerical code or any such thing. Needless to say, the inconvenience of the cards are also the safety of them. Secondarily, supposedly because of the ID system, Trinity College is ranked number 23rd safest of 135 colleges according to Reader’s Digest. This obviously not a ranking the school administration would like to lose. Thirdly, the ACIS manager also iterated that the reason for having ID cards supersedes simply dorm access as ID cards are necessary for very many different actions on campus, such as food, etc, and cannot consider reasons why a student would not have it on them. It seems that in some ways accidents are not excusable? But, the main point seems to be that making dormitory access to easy for students would be making it easier for a lot of other personages to access the dorms as well, through diverse methods mostly having to do with finding out codes. Upon the last word, the ACIS manager revealed that in the future the college plans to make access to other facilities and residence halls, perhaps even rooms, more exclusively by ID cards for students and faculty. I personally am not completely convinced of the reasons provided and will seek additional information from other sources. If additional clarification is needed, please contact me as all the info presented to me is not necessarily present here.

Rebecca Herrigel ‘10, Peter Walters ‘11, Mark LaVoie ‘11, Lorenzo Sewanan ‘12, and I (Krystal Ramirez ‘10) have been hard at work. Here are a few bullet points about what we’ve accomplished thus far:

For more information about the Campus Infrastructure Committee, please click here.

I want to start by saying that i thought the rally today went extremely well. I would also like to extend my thanks to the people who spent so much time to make this great event possible.

The purpose of this post is simple, to keep the dialgoue going. I would love to hear ideas from anyone about how to make Trinity a more accepting and tolerant place.

I look forward to hearing what you have to say,

Bryce

The following is a letter that was sent out to the entire student body a few minutes ago:

Our campus is in a critical period right now. The actions, or inactions, that we, as students, take in the coming days will define us in more ways than we know. The issue of racism at Trinity is particularly visible right now, and while it is not a new one, we have an opportunity before us to send a clear message that we stand for compassion and inclusiveness, not for racism and bigotry.

Everyone at Trinity seems to have a different opinion about how to deal with the racism that faces us, and everyone seems to have different ways of coping with it, but let us not allow these technicalities to distract us from the real issue before us. Often times, when we feel hurt, we need to find a source for our anger, and in times like these, we pick a person to wrongly blame. At this time, no one knows who posted the offensive TrinTalk post except the author him or herself, and we hope that you will all dismiss any rumors that you may have heard about its authorship.

Today, Monday, October 27, 2008 we will be standing together, as members of the Trinity College family to show our friends and classmates that we want Trinity to be a truly welcoming and inclusive place. So, please join us at 5:00pm on the Mather Quad (in front of Austin Arts) to stand in solidarity with all those who have been hurt by racist or otherwise offensive statements at our precious institution. Trinity is our college and let’s claim it as such.

Peace,

Rosalia Abreu ‘11
Ibrahim Diallo ‘11
Marston Hefner ‘12
Adam Katcher ‘12
Tomas Kavanagh ‘11
Channon Miller ‘11
Shannon Smith ‘12
Bryan Wedeen ‘12
Andrea Wise ‘11

Hello folks,

Just wanted to give you an update on the situation of the campus pub. As of last week, we have had a meeting where we met with members of the administration, Chartwells, and an architect to begin seriously making this dream a reality. At the meeting we talked about our overall vision of this pub and began talking about funding, function, operation, etc.  Our next meeting will this coming Tuesday and we hope to some more firm answers and information about the project. Again, please feel free to contact myself or any other member of the SGA with questions or comments.

Peter Walters ‘11

Senator at Large

Monday, Oct. 27th.

5pm.

Mather Quad.

Please join us, members of our beloved Trinity, to show our classmates and friends who have been hurt by acts of racism and bigotry on our precious campus, that we are united together, and that we want Trinity to be a welcoming and accepting place for ALL.

There were three issues with the GPS that are being addressed:

1. The information was refreshing every 30 seconds. It is now refreshing every 15 seconds.

2. When the system goes offline, it displays the most recent image. Right now there’s no way to tell if you’re looking at the location of the shuttle 15 seconds ago, or 10 minutes ago when it went offline. The powers that be are working on it so we’ll keep you all updated.

3. When the shuttle is stopped (driver taking a bathroom break, or something) there’s no indication that it’s stopped. The magical shuttle powers are also working on that.

Also, we’ve asked that the shuttle drivers stop at every stop for 30 seconds (to wait in case someone is waiting inside their building for the shuttle to arrive) before they go onto another stop, so hopefully they’ll start doing that soon.

Please keep me updated with problems/compliments on the shuttle system.

The ERC committee has completed this year’s student survey. It should be out next week or so.Be sure to take the survey when you get it! This is one easy way to tell the SGA what you want around here. –Adam 

In today’s issue of the Hartford Courant, there is a photo and caption about Trinity’s First Annual Campus Sustainability Day, held yesterday on the grassy knoll in front of Mather. Click here to see the picture and read about the event!

I had a meeting earlier this week with the Director of IT and he has promised that at least 50% of the dorms on campus will have wireless access by the time we get back from winter break in January. The rest will be done by the beginning of the 2009-2010 academic year. Just thought I’d share the exciting news!

The SGA is also very excited to welcome Maggie (Frances) Thomas ‘10 on board as a Senator-at-Large. She will be joining the Elections, Recruitment, and Communications Committee (ERC). We are also happy to have Sarah Thayer ‘10 as our new Webmaster.

Are you interested in helping to improve safety on campus?

Are you free on Thursdays at 4pm?

The SGA needs 2 additional students to be part of the Safety Advisory Group, with the Director of Strategic Planning, a representative from the Dean of Students, Campus Safety, and the SGA.

If you’re interested, please email me (Andrea.Wise@trincoll.edu) with a brief description about why you’d be valuable on that committee.

I’d like to thank everyone who’s contacted us about issues with the new Campus Shuttle. In particular, the GPS tracking feature is obviously not working very well right now. We’ve also gotten some reports that the shuttles are not stopping and waiting briefly at every stop (so that people waiting in their dorms can see the shuttle arrive, and have time to get outside and catch it). We’re also aware that currently, the designated stops are not marked. This is a new system and we’re still trying to work out all the kinks, so please bear with us and keep the feedback coming!