Founded in 1897 as Trinity College in Washington, D.C. by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Trinity was the nation’s first Catholic liberal arts college for women. Trinity opened its doors to its first students in 1900 – the Red Class of 1904. Trinity’s first building, Main Hall, was built in stages, with the cornerstone set in 1899, the south wing open to students in 1900 and the building completed with the addition of the north wing in 1909 – when electricity was installed. In the early years, Main Hall included all of the classrooms, student rooms, dining hall, library, chapel and convent for the Sisters of Notre Dame.
Trinity became Trinity Washington University in 2004, and today Trinity enrolls more than 2,000 students in five academic schools: College of Arts and Sciences (Trinity’s undergraduate liberal arts college for women), School of Business and Graduate Studies, School of Education, School of Nursing and Health Professions and School of Professional Studies. Trinity’s top undergraduate majors include nursing, biology and biochemistry, health services, education, counseling, psychology, business, communication and criminal justice.
Trinity continues its histori
...c women’s college, now known as the College of Arts and Sciences, enrolling 1,000 young women who hail largely from the District of Columbia and the Washington region. Trinity proudly enrolls more D.C. residents and more graduates of D.C. Public Schools than any other private university in the city and in the nation.Trinity’s student body today is predominantly African American and Latina; about 80% of the undergraduate students are eligible for Pell Grants, and about 10% of the undergraduate women are Dreamers, undocumented students with DACA status. About 5% of Trinity students are men enrolled in coed programs in the graduate and professional schools.
Trinity has gained prominence in recent years for success in the education of low-income students of color, and has received recognition for this work including the Carnegie Corporation Award for Academic Excellence, grants from the Mellon Foundation, and a major grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for the development of curricula and pedagogy to advance more women of color in the sciences. In 2016 Trinity opened the Payden Academic Center with state-of-the-art laboratories for the sciences and nursing, and pervasive technologies available to all disciplines.
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