Trinity Given Major Gift

October 20, 2006
By ROBERT A. FRAHM, Courant Staff Writer

Trinity College has received pledges totaling $39.5 million from three anonymous donors, officials announced this week.

The money, roughly equal to the largest single gift in the college's history, will be used to support endowed faculty positions, financial aid for international students and the general endowment at the private liberal arts college in Hartford.

"It's a wonderful vote of confidence in the future of the college from three very generous alumni who are dedicated to paying back part of what they believe Trinity gave them," Trinity President James F. "Jimmy" Jones Jr. said Thursday.

The gifts, part of a $300 million fund-raising campaign announced in May by college trustees, will "enable us to bolster our commitment to attracting and retaining the brightest and most talented students and the highest-caliber faculty," he said.

Under Jones, the college has made an aggressive effort to bolster fund-raising and cut costs. Over the past two years, Trinity has made a series of painful cuts, including the reduction of some part-time faculty jobs, to keep its budget out of the red.

The latest pledges will allow the 2,300-student college to increase its endowment, currently estimated at $380 million to $390 million. Building the endowment, Jones said, "is one of our biggest goals in my stewardship of this office."

Part of the gift is earmarked for the creation of six new endowed faculty positions to be added to 29 existing endowed faculty chairs.

The gift also will help the college recruit additional international students, with preference for students from Eastern Europe, officials said. Trinity currently enrolls 47 students from 29 foreign countries.

Officials said the $39.5 million is roughly equal to the largest single gift to the private liberal arts college, a bequest from Trinity alumnus Henry Melville Fuller received shortly after his death in 2001.