Happy 124th Birthday Trinity!
August 20, 2021: Trinity celebrates 124 remarkable years of educating thousands of women and men and being a vital and vibrant learning community in the nation’s capital! Trinity will celebrate its 125th Anniversary in 2022! Stay tuned for details – we are planning a grand and festive celebration!
On August 20, 1897, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur officially founded Trinity College, which was established by an Act of Congress. By then, the Sisters were already fundraising, recruiting students and developing plans for the construction of the magnificent Main Hall. The cornerstone of Main Hall was set in place on December 8, 1899, and, on a cold, rainy day in November 1900, Trinity welcomed its very first students, the Red Class of 1904. Trinity was founded as a college for women and proudly continues its women’s college tradition in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Over the decades, Trinity expanded its campus, added graduate programs, launched its innovative Weekend College in the 1980s, and, in 2004, became Trinity Washington University. Trinity established the School of Nursing and Health Professions in 2007, and Trinity’s nursing program is one of the top providers of highly qualified nurses in the Washington, D.C region: Trinity nurses have a 100% first-time passing rate for the rigorous NCLEX nursing test and 100% of Trinity’s nursing graduate are employed immediately after graduation. In 2016, Trinity opened the Payden Academic Center, an innovative learning center featuring state-of-the-art nursing and STEM labs and classrooms for all disciplines.
In fall 2020, Trinity launched Trinity DARE: Driving Actions for Racial Equity, which focuses on specific strategies and actions to promote racial equity for Trinity students and graduates and widen pipelines for graduates to enter and lead in professions where persons of color are under-represented.
Trinity is recognized nationally as a transformative institution, highly regarded as a role model for providing high quality academic experiences to students of color, first-generation students, Dreamers and students from marginalized communities.
Today, Trinity Washington University enrolls more than 1,800 students in its undergraduate and graduate programs in the College of Arts and Sciences, School of Nursing and Health Professions, School of Professional and Graduate Studies and School of Education. More than half of Trinity’s students are residents of the District of Columbia – Trinity proudly enrolls more D.C. residents than any other private university in the city and in the nation.
Trinity is designated by the U.S. Department of Education as a Minority Serving Institution; 95% of the students are Black, Hispanic and multi-racial. Trinity is the only university in the D.C. region designated as both a Predominantly Black Institution and Hispanic Serving Institution.
Trinity graduates include Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ’62, former Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius ’70, Trinity President Patricia McGuire ’74. and Pinkie Mayfield ’96, Chief Communications Officer and Vice President, Corporate Affairs, for Graham Holdings Company. Recent graduates include ABC News reporter/producer Beatrice Peterson ’12; Michelle Mitchell 06, Strategic Communities Program Manager for Media Partnerships at Facebook, who launched We the Culture – Facebook’s new program for Black creators and artists; and Brandon Todd ’09, Director of Corporate Policy, Washington Gas, and former member of the DC. Council.
Be part of the Trinity story!
- Apply today – use our free, online application!
- Give to Trinity, and help us make college more accessible for all!
Contact: Ann Pauley, Media Relations, pauleya@trinitydc.edu
