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Trinity hosted the Community Partnerships’ Service Fair on October 1 to connect students with opportunities to serve in the city and Chicagoland area. Hosted by Tabitha Matthews, coordinator for Community Services and Pre-College Programs, the fair welcomed some of Trinity’s many community partners.
“This fair is extremely important to Trinity and our community and allows students, staff and faculty to respond out of their ‘love for God and neighbor’ and address a community needs,” Matthews said.
“As active stakeholders in Trinity’s mission, we want to encourage more students to move out of their comfort zone, embrace, and take advantage of those experiences outside of the classroom. We want students to thrive and flourish in their academic and spiritual journey.”
We want students to thrive and flourish in
their academic and spiritual journey.
Tabitha Matthews
Partnering organizations represented included:
Breakthrough Ministries
By The Hand Club for Kids
Circle Urban Ministries
Cru Inner City/Agape Center
Faith and Action
Lake Katherine
Love Inc.
Palos Heights Christian Reformed Church
Pui Tak Center
Restoration Ministries South Suburban PADS
Roseland Christian Ministries
Urban Youth Outreach
Young Life
These organizations offer a variety of resources to people in the city and suburbs including homeless shelters and intervention, food pantries and services, thrift stores, clothing drives, after school programs and tutoring, apprenticeship programs, youth development, neighborhood transformation, and wildlife preservation.
Trinity seeks to create a learning culture which includes service-learning, and Matthews said, “We felt by having all of our partners here, it would help fulfill that need, as well as increase the visibility of resources that our department has to offer.”
The 550 Challenge is a 24 hour challenge to raise funds for Trinity Christian College in celebration of Trinity’s 55th anniversary. We challenge you to give $5.50 or more to help us reach our $55,000 goal, then challenge your friends to do the same.
Trinity Christian College has been named to the 2015 Military Friendly® Schools list by Victory Media, the premier media entity for military personnel transitioning into civilian life.
This ranks Trinity in the top 15 percent of colleges, universities and trade schools in the country that are doing the most to embrace military students, and to dedicate resources to ensure their success in the classroom and after graduation.
The methodology used for making the Military Friendly® Schools list has changed the student veteran landscape to one much more transparent, and has played a significant role over the past six years in capturing and advancing best practices to support military students across the country.
For information about applying to Trinity, call 866.TRIN.4.ME. For information about military-related benefits at Trinity, contact Ryan Zantingh in Financial Aid at 708.239.4872 or ryan.zantingh@trnty.edu
English major Ethan Holmes ’15 of Blue Island, Illinois, represented Trinity at the second annual Ephebe’s Journey workshop at Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. in August.
Holmes attended the seminar on Sophocles’ play Philoctetes. At the seminar, open to college students and recent graduates working in government or other civic offices, students learned about being a citizen and a leader, both in ancient Greece and modern America.
“We are thrilled that Ethan was accepted into the program, especially since he is a playwright, poet, and very interested in how arts and society go together,” said Professor of English Michael Vander Weele ’73.
Holmes said highlights of the conference included discovering how diverse, yet alike, all of the students were and the opportunity to contribute his Christian perspective. He found that traveling itself provided him with diverse perspectives, too, as he enjoyed a conversation with the ambassador of New Zealand during an evening walk and a dinner discussion with a homeless man.
With a longtime interest in writing, and plans to pursue further study in law or seminary, Holmes used the conference to strengthen his faith and knowledge, qualities that he witnessed in Trinity friends and drew him to transfer to the College from Moraine Valley Community College.
Holmes said he appreciates the many ways in which he has been encouraged to explore his love of writing, theology, and even science, at Trinity. “Trinity’s English department is a wild and wonderful place,” he said. “The professors demand a lot of students but deeply care about them.”
Holmes has attended three conferences while at Trinity and has had the opportunity to see his play, “Evensong,” performed and directed during Opus, the College’s annual celebration of student scholarship.
This fall, Trinity had good enrollment news to celebrate as it began the new academic year. Trinity’s fall enrollment increased to 1,406 students compared with last year’s enrollment total of 1,380. The College’s retention experience was also excellent.
“Our strong retention, which significantly exceeds the national average, indicates that students see the value of a Trinity education, have enjoyed the previous year, know that they are receiving an excellent education, and have experienced the type of faculty-student interaction that permeates our academic learning environment,” said Interim President Liz Rudenga.
In addition, Trinity’s flourishing Honors Program welcomed 23 incoming students, the largest number of students in the history of the program.
Honors Program Director Dr. Craig Mattson credits the result in part with Trinity’s efforts to continuously cultivate a learning culture of excellent education.
The graduate studies program in counseling psychology continues to experience strong growth. More information about the College’s thriving graduate studies programs in counseling psychology and special education is available on the website.
The enrollment number includes students from Chicago neighborhoods who are taking courses at the College’s Austin site through a partnership with By The Hand Club for Kids. Trinity launched the cohort-style, two-year program last year to enroll students who were once served through the By The Hand program and similar programs.
One of the professor’s recent poems was inspired by a panel discussion at the annual Anime Central convention. Another poem was sparked by a day in the park with his young daughters. In another, he melds his interest in jazz and haiku.
Dr. Mark Jones, professor of English, has enjoyed a series of recent publishing successes with his creative writing, especially his haiku.
“Haiku are celebratory,” said Jones, “putting together two images with an epiphany in the middle and capturing a basic experience in terse, minimalist form.”
Over Trinity’s winter break, Jones researched several haiku journals, and the first piece he submitted was accepted for publication, an experience he said “invigorated” him and kept him submitting. Two more haiku were then published by Clarke University’s Tenth Muse.
Writing poetry is a learning process he experiences right along with his students. He has shared his work with his classes, and one poem in particular, “Villanelle of the Song Tra Bong” (forthcoming in Tule Review), was inspired by Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, a work Jones assigns his first-year students.
During the process of rediscovering the practice of writing poetry, Jones said he came to realize that haiku, although enjoyable to write, is not his best form, and he pursues other poetic genres when writing each week. “Sunday Morning,” a poem in loose couplets, is featured in Christian Century.
Read “Sunday Morning” by Dr. Mark Jones
Other poems have appeared in Bewildering Stories, Boston Poetry Magazine, Chrysanthemum, The Copperfield Review, Crack the Spine, Haiku Journal, Lantern Magazine, Niteblade, Paper Wasp, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Poehemians, Red Booth Review, Songs of Eretz, and Vine Leaves Literary Journal.
Building on its historical founding by young entrepreneurs in 1959 and burgeoning engagement with local businesses to enhance its vibrant curriculum, Trinity Christian College has become a Founding Partner in a new program developed by the Future Founders Foundation (FFF) that supports college-age entrepreneurs.
FFF, a non-profit organization that inspires youth in Chicagoland to explore and practice entrepreneurship, announced the launch of College Founders on September 17. The program connects students to the best entrepreneurial resources, events, and activities in the Chicagoland community.
College Founders will provide a number of services for college entrepreneurs. The program will also provide opportunities for Trinity to collaborate with other partnering colleges and universities and offer ways for the department to extend its reach even further into the Chicago community. College Founders is seeded by The Coleman Foundation, The John E. and Jeanne T. Hughes Foundation and Capital One and is also supported by Crain’s Chicago Business.
…another way for our students to see and to dream.
Dr. Rick Hamilton
Dr. Rick Hamilton, assistant professor of business, and Kyle Harkema, assistant professor of marketing, voiced deep gratitude and enthusiasm for the invitation for Trinity to be a Founding Partner.
“Being part of this program provides another way for us to build on our rich history and to build a future, not just a present,” said Hamilton, “another way for our students to see and to dream.”
The invitation to participate in this Chicagoland entrepreneurship initiative comes at an opportune time for the College as it rolling out the last stages of curricular revisions in the business major. Trinity is adding two new courses taken as a yearlong sequence during which students create business ideas in Creativity in Business (fall) and build the plans for these ideas in Business Plan Development (spring).
It is exciting to envision that the [projects] students will be creating … could compete in the broader Chicagoland academic environment.
Professor Kyle Harkema
“The start of these new courses coincides perfectly with our participation in FFF’s new program,” said Harkema. “It is exciting to envision that the idea pitches and business plans students will be creating in their classes could potentially be shared via the consortium and compete in the broader Chicagoland academic environment.”
Hamilton and Harkema, along with their department colleagues, have made great strides in broadening and deepening the curriculum and establishing mutually beneficial relationships with local and Chicago businesses to provide hands-on learning for students and complimentary consulting to business owners via student projects.
“These efforts are indicative of the valuable connections that business faculty have made for the purpose of supporting the vocational development of students,” said Interim Provost Sharon Robbert, Ph.D.
In addition to its distinctive and career-building internship opportunities locally and in Chicago, the business department’s recent initiatives have included the creation of an advisory panel made up of professionals who mentor students and the development of the Conversations on Leadership series. This semester begins the Conversations on Vocation series, which will once again welcome CEOs and other professionals to several discussions attended by students and community members.
This partnership represents an exciting venture that builds on the extensive experience and expertise of Trinity business faculty members,” said Interim President Liz Rudenga, Ph.D. “Trinity is an ideal college for future business leaders offering a combination of Christian perspective, top-notch professors, a stellar liberal arts foundation, and connections such as this with influential organizations in the Chicago area.”
Benefits to College Students
According the FFF announcement, the program has three components: Founders E-Pass, Founders Fellowship and the U.Pitch Competition.
The Founders E-Pass is a free virtual all-access-pass to curated entrepreneurial experiences in the Chicagoland community. Student benefits include free tickets to community events, field trips to entrepreneurial companies, peer meetups, networking, office hours, a job board and more. Once E-Pass holders attend one community event, they will qualify for a free online subscription to Crain’s Chicago Business.
The Founders Fellowship is a selective year-long program designed to accelerate the development of rockstar student entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial-minded individuals. Founders Fellows will have priority access to all E-Pass services plus benefit from mentoring, job shadowing, internships, legal office hours and volunteer opportunities through other Future Founders programs. They can also tap into our scholarship pool to attend specific programs and/or to support professional services for their new businesses.
The U.Pitch Competition will bring together the best students from a cross-section of Chicagoland universities in the ultimate elevator pitch competition. Finalists will compete to win a portion of a $10,000 prize pool. The event will take place on Monday, November 17 from 5:15pm – 8:30pm at The Mid-America Club.
Read the official Future Founders announcement here.
Trinity Christian College’s Honors Program extends learning beyond the classroom.
The Honors Seminar course “Representing the Tragic: Considering History, Aesthetics, and Resistance in Holocaust Drama,” taught by Dr. John Sebestyen, associate professor of communication arts, is an example of that. Sebestyen took his class to Skokie, Illinois to visit the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.
“I thought it would be useful for our students to know some more detail about that time period and have a shared vocabulary from which to talk about the history,” Sebestyen said. “Art works provoke reflective thought about how art can represent a tragic time period.”
On this trip the students were able to walk through an art gallery, a history exhibit, and a timeline of the Holocaust, before ending their trip listening to the testimony of a Holocaust survivor.
Students found that they were confronted at the museum with a reality that pushed them beyond a textbook. Students such as Jamey Otte ’16 of Sheboygan, Wisconsin found that the trip helped him to further apply class material.
“The experience we had at the museum will orient our thoughts and our studies in a way that allows us to approach the material in a way that honors the identity of the victims,” Otte said. “It has allowed the darkness of the tragedy to become more real to us.”
Going outside of the classroom is nothing new for Trinity professors who accompany their students to Chicago museums, theaters, galleries, and places of business.
“Chicago is an excellent resource for the classroom,” Sebestyen said. “There is always something happening downtown, and there are a variety of events that our students can experience to enhance their education.”
Trinity Christian College has been ranked 28th among Regional Colleges—Midwest by U.S.News & World Report in “Best Colleges” for 2015. A total of 364 colleges are ranked in the entire Regional category.
“I am pleased that Trinity is recognized by U.S. News for the quality of academic experiences on our campus, though numbers do not always tell the entire story,” said Interim Provost Sharon Robbert, Ph.D.
“Trinity students, faculty, and staff learn in a community that exemplifies the postures we hold dear as we act out our mission. We truly are a campus that is responsive to God, formational, connected, and hospitable.”
Trinity also ranked 8th in the area of Campus Ethnic Diversity: Regional Colleges—Midwest. This ranking identifies colleges where students are most likely to encounter undergraduates from racial or ethnic groups different from their own, according to the U.S. News methodology.
The College stands among other institutions in the Regional Colleges category that offer a wide range of degree programs in the liberal arts and in fields such as business, education, and nursing.
Find out more: What is the enduring value of a liberal arts degree?
The U.S. News rankings are based on several criteria, including peer assessment, graduation and freshmen retention rates, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, and alumni giving.
The Involvement Fair once again kicked off this year’s calendar of student life events. To help acclimate and engage freshmen in college life, numerous clubs set up tables outside on August 29 to highlight all that life at Trinity can offer. Community businesses and churches also passed out information.
Student Association Vice President HalieWisse ’16 of Oostburg, Wisconsin, planned and oversaw the annual event.
“The planning process gave me a chance to gain a better understanding of each club’s unique identity on campus,” she said. “This year we encouraged clubs and organizations to get creative with how they wanted to represent themselves.”
Check out the photos on Facebook, too!
The clubs and committees met the challenge, which helped increase attendance by both freshmen and upperclassmen. Clubs and organizations ranged from the Prayer Ministry to the Multicultural Committee to the Rock Climbing Trolls. Several new clubs joined the fair this year as well, including the California School Project.
The diversity of opportunities represented showed freshmen the many ways they can find a welcoming home at Trinity.