Update from President Kurt Dykstra, October 27, 2020

Dear Trinity Students:

I trust that you are hanging in there as the semester continues and as the weather turns a bit cooler, forcing more activity indoors.  Among the many things happening in your lives right now, I know that there are questions about Trinity’s educational delivery model in the Spring Semester of 2021.

Let me share some news about this topic, which applies to traditional undergraduate, adult undergraduate, and graduate students:

For the Spring 2021 semester, Trinity will have on-campus options for classroom instruction and campus life as well as a remote option for students who are not yet ready to return to in-person learning. 

As you prepare for Advising Day and Registration for Spring 2021 you will have two additional decisions to make:

• For All Students:  Do you prefer to take your semester courses largely in-person, socially-distanced, and on campus or will you take your semester courses remotely?
• For Traditional Undergraduate Students:  Do you prefer to live on campus or will you choose to live off campus?

Additional Important Information

• The academic calendar has been modified around best practices to limit the spread of COVID-19, including the removal of spring break.  Please note that start dates and breaks vary among traditional, adult, and graduate programs.  I encourage you to review the modified academic calendar linked above.  The class schedule, too, is available online.
• The Covenant of Care will remain in place:  life on campus will still include protocols and restrictions such as social distancing; mask wearing; limiting the number of persons in the dining hall, BBC, chapel, and other spaces on campus, etc.  These will continue to be communicated, and enforced, throughout campus.
• Academics will be largely in person with a remote option.  Some classes will be delivered exclusively in a remote or hybrid manner even if you choose “in-person, socially-distanced, on-campus.”  This could occur, for example, where the professor has particular health concerns making in-person teaching problematic, where the strong majority of the students are choosing to take the course remotely, or where the size of the course will not permit it to be held entirely in-person and still maintain proper social distancing and spacing.  In the coming weeks, these sorts of situations will become clear by checking your courses in the student portal.  Also, as many have already experienced in the Fall, “in-person versus remote” likely will be a fluid situation as we endure seasons of quarantine and COVID-19 on campus.  Students who are COVID-positive or in quarantine will be able to access their classes remotely.
• Athletic conference competition will return in COVID-modified ways, both for winter and spring sports, as well as for the fall sports that were postponed in 2020.  Other campus activities, too, likely will occur, though in ways that are adapted to these COVID times.

Action Steps for Students 

What should you do next?

• For All Students:  At Registration, all students (i.e., traditional undergraduate, adult undergraduate, and graduate) will be required to indicate whether they intend to be either (1) an in-person student or (2) a remote student for the Spring 2021 Semester.  This selection will be clearly marked in the Student Portal after you complete your course registration.  You will have a limited opportunity to change your intention – though we are asking for your best intention at registration so that we may plan appropriately.
• For Traditional Undergraduate Students Only: Student Life will send you a separate email asking you to indicate where you intend to live during the Spring 2021 Semester.  Please note:  Trinity is not requiring traditional undergraduate students to reside on campus during the Spring 2021 Semester.  Students eligible for residential housing on campus will be asked to complete a Housing Intent Form, indicating their  preference regarding housing.

How to Learn More

As you work through these decisions, we know that you will have questions about the Spring 2021 Semester.  Where can you turn for additional information?

• Faculty Advisors.  We encourage you to talk through your decision with your faculty advisor during your advising session.
• Student Life Staff.  This week, Student Life staff will be hosting various virtual opportunities for Q&A, including:
• Student Government Association Open Meeting, tonight – Tuesday, 10/27/20 –  on Zoom.  Please mail Ross.Barz@trnty.edu for the Zoom link, time, and additional information.
• Advising Day session with Student Life, Thursday, 10/29/20, from 3:30 – 4:30 p.m.  (Zoom links to this session will be sent tomorrow).  Please see the attached Advising Day schedule for more information.
• Parent session for Trinity parents, Thursday 10/29/20.  (Please have your parents email the Office of Alumni and Family Engagement for more information and registration information.)
• Additional future information sessions and events.  Keep checking your email.

As you think about these options for the Spring 2021 Semester, I want you to know how grateful and proud we are of you for the ways in which you have persisted – and even flourished – during these strange and difficult days.

Please continue to check your email for additional, and more detailed, information.  We also will be updating Trinity’s website soon – but we wanted to get this information in your hands in a timely way first.

Thank you very much.  Remember:  We have been, are, and will continue to be a Romans 12:12 kind of people.

Yours most sincerely,

Kurt D. Dykstra, President