Center for Hartford Engagement and Research

Trinity's Center for Hartford Engagement and Research (CHER), located at 70 Vernon Street, is dedicated to generating and strengthening lasting academic and co-curricular relationships between the Trinity community and communities in the surrounding Hartford area. Established on September 5, 2018, CHER officially grouped together five core ongoing community-based projects that previously operated independently: Community Learning, Community Service and Civic Engagement, the Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy (HMTCA) Partnership, the Liberal Arts Action Lab, and Trinfo.Café.

Community Learning

The Community Learning Program is focused on academic partnerships among Trinity students, staff, faculty, and partners in Hartford. The program includes several initiatives aimed at inviting members of the Trinity and Hartford communities to collaboratively work to learn about the city and its history, problems, and cultures, and people. In the Community Learning Research Fellows (CLRF) program, Trinity students work with a member of the faculty and a community partner from the Hartford area on a creative or research project within the partner's organization. The Public Humanities Collaborative (PHC) program takes place in the summer term for students, faculty, and Hartford citizens and organizations to research an area of study within the public humanities—defined as the study of the way people interpret narratives of the human experience. PHC groups consist of a Hartford-area partner in the humanities (museums, libraries, or other cultural institutions), faculty member(s), and up to four Trinity student researchers. The Community Learning program also provides funding for new and existing courses that explore Community Learning as part of their syllabus. Currently, Trinity offers over 20 courses in this area, as well as a Community Action Minor and a Community Action Gateway Program.

Community Service and Civic Engagement

CHER also maintains many volunteer opportunities in Hartford, which are listed in a database to help connect Trinity volunteers with community partners. The Office of Community Service and Civic Engagement supports these opportunities by employing a team of student staff who run events, collect donations, plan campaigns, and facilitate volunteer opportunities. Projects undertaken by Community Service and Civic Engagement have included the The Coop, Do-It Day, Green Campus, JELLO Community Service Organization, Trinity Homelessness Project, and Trinthon.

HMTCA-Trinity Partnership

The Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy (HMTCA) has partnered with Trinity since 2000 as part of the Learning Corridor Initiative which sought to consider Trinity’s role as a Hartford community institution. The Learning Corridor brought together the Trinity College Boys and Girls Club along with four schools, one of them being the Hartford Magnet Middle School (HMMS). HMMS would later become the Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy in 2011, when Hartford Public Schools and Trinity College leaders proposed to expand HMMS from a middle school to include an early college preparatory high school. Aspects of the HMTCA-Trinity Partnership include the Summer Writing Institute taught by Trinity and HMTCA faculty; HMTCA students attending Trinity courses; HMTCA courses hosted on the Trinity campus; Trinity student tutors for HMTCA students; and monthly lunches where HMTCA and Trinity students gather in Mather dining hall. Since 2019, Hartford Public Schools and Trinity have focused their education plan on issues of educational equity, student leadership, and multicultural/multilingual learning while maintaining the original early college model.

Liberal Arts Action Lab

The Liberal Arts Action Lab (LAAL) was inaugurated as a part of Trinity College's downtown campus at 10 Constitution Plaza (in Hartford's central business district) in January 2018 as a workspace for students, faculty, and community members to gather and collaborate on research towards forging solutions to challenges facing the city of Hartford. As an academic collaboration between Trinity and Capital Community College, members from both institutions share ideas with and learn from Hartford community organizations as they work on semester-long projects. Tim Cresswell, Trinity dean of faculty and vice president for academic affairs from 2016 until 2019, and avid proponent for the improvement of Trinity's relations with Hartford communities, chaired the planning committee that developed the LAAL.

Trinfo.Café

As 1990s technological advancements accelerated and computers became more essential to everyday life, a problem of access inequality burgeoned in the Hartford area, prompting Trinity to launch initiatives to bridge this divide. One such project was Trinfo.Café, a neighborhood technology center open to the Trinity community and the public, intended to exemplify Trinity as a supportive partner to the Hartford community. Trinfo.Café opened at 1300 Broad Street as construction of the Learning Corridor was coming to a close and has since provided Wi-Fi and computer access, computer literacy workshops, website building services, and since 2012, a community garden. Though the main focus of the center has been on technology education and access, Trinfo.Café’s goals for the future include expanding programming to consider energy conservation, transportation, and food security.