Update from President Kurt Dykstra, March 29, 2021

Dear Students:

Today, many of you (i.e., the Traditional Undergraduate students) began registering for your Fall 2021 classes; others will do so as the week progresses.  This, along with your recent Advising Day faculty advisor appointments, gives us all the opportunity to think about the next academic year in earnest, even as we finish this one strong.

In addition to selecting your courses and mapping your schedule, you might be wondering what the educational and campus life will look like in the Fall.  That is the purpose of this (relatively) brief email.

We are planning for a full return to campus in the Fall 2021 semester.

We believe, based upon various health experts and agencies, that by the Fall, COVID will be more of an inconvenience than a dominant force.  As more people are vaccinated (just last week, the State of Illinois opened eligibility to employees of higher education as a group) and as more people have had COVID, our ability to control and manage the virus will be very different.  Moreover, all of us have read of the “non-viral COVID” impacts to our society – things like rising mental health challenges and anxieties related to loneliness and isolation – and recognize the importance of being with and around other people.  We are not meant to be alone, as the Book of Genesis reminds us – and as the last year has reinforced for us.  Plus, we now have readily available rapid testing which is another significant enhancement to our shared life together.

At Trinity, one of the important ways in which this return to (new) normalcy will be demonstrated is in the reinstitution of our longstanding Residential Housing Policy – a policy which was suspended for this academic year.  This policy (found on Page 32 of the Student Handbook) shapes an important part of the kind of comprehensive educational experience (living and learning together) that Trinity delivers best.  Even in this current semester, having more students on campus has been both wonderful and educationally rich.  Sometimes we do not fully appreciate what we have until it is taken away; that, surely, is true of the collegiate experience over this last year.  We want to get back to what we enjoyed pre-COVID and, hopefully, do so in even better and more encouraging ways for one another.

Of course, there are some in the community who for various reasons need alternate arrangements – whether for the means of educational deliver or housing situations.  And you may have additional questions.  To those ends, please note the following:

• While our default returns to in-person learning, we will also grant exceptions to this under limited circumstances which the Provost’s Office will communicate to you separately in the near future.  (Note that you will not have any “in-person” or “remote” selection to make in your course registration process for Fall 2021.)
• Immediately after Easter, the Office of Student Life will provide you with email updates on topics such as housing sign-up information and exemptions, lounge policies, guest policies, visitation policies, and meal plan policies for the 2021-22 academic year.

For now, as you start to register for your Fall classes, know that we look forward to being physically back together as a community in the new academic year.

We remain, whether at a distance or in proximity, a Romans 12:12 people.

Kurt D. Dykstra, President