The Tripod

They say that you can tell a lot about people by staring into their eyes. It is as if the eyes have captured thousands of images, and these images were being projected to you upon a closer look. Like a black hole with a gravitational field so powerful that even light cannot escape its pull, one's pupil, which is in the center of the iris, draws a spectator into a microcosm that cannot be ignored.

Many such pupils have been seen on the campus of Trinity College. What draws onlookers is their untold stories. You look into their eyes and what do you see? What you see is pain. Pupils that are, to quote from a line from the rapper Scarface, "tired of being stepped on and passed around like weed." Eyes are red because the future cannot be read. Can you see this pupil's future? What lies down the line? Is it just the professor's test or the pupil's time management?

Well, time is up and it is time to pay. To pay for all the right and wrong deeds of this pupil. All the deeds recorded on the transcript. Now your time is up. Analyze this pupil's life. Please remove your glasses. Look me in the eye, tell me what you see.

For a minority of students on Trinity's Hartford campus, it is difficult to have complete faith in the College's stated mission on its Web site. The mission states that "Trinity College is a community united in a quest for excellence in liberal arts education. Our purpose is to foster critical thinking, free the mind of parochialism and prejudice, and prepare students to lead examined lives that are personally satisfying, civically responsible, and socially useful."

This quest may be particularly difficult for a student who may be struggling financially, socially, and academically. Imagine having to support relatives abroad while working multiple jobs on and off-campus. Imagine not having money for books, having insufficient funds to cover the standard meal plan, while finding it difficult to assimilate into the Trinity social lifestyle centered around fraternities and sororities. Just when you thought it was all over, you find some professors accustomed to negative mass media images of your kind not taking you seriously, telling you that you are under prepared for college.

How does such a minority of students open up to their professors who are supposed to guide them? Such a minority finds themselves ill-advised and see their average grades falling in the lower end of the achievement bar.

Trinity will be living a lie if calls are made for inclusion of such a minority without actually preparing them for life after graduation. A two-step program that incorporates such a minority of students while preparing them for a challenging world would achieve the most success. A program to rise: Rise to Xcellence (RISE(2X)). It is still a work in progress, but Trinity stands to gain a great deal from such a program. Through RISE(2X), minority students will be helped to rise to excellence by raising resources, increasing involvement, and strengthening students' experience in education.

Success after graduation is very important because it determines the alumni's interest in giving back to the College. Students who gain a lot from a college are more willing to donate to the school than students who feel cheated by the college. Imagine the size of our endowment with such a successful minority of students.

Article Tools