This morning, Trinity College is popping the web page on the bell tower emblem that represented the college for the final 23 years and bringing again the solar as its renewed emblem, an ode to the rising solar depicted in its official seal created 157 years in the past.
That is a part of a model refresh aimed toward enhancing the popularity of San Antonio’s “college on a hill,” officers stated. However the refresh goes properly past the brand new maroon solar emblem, Trinity officers defined, with a web site redesign and up to date messaging to attract a bigger viewers.
“We’re ending development on our welcome middle and a brand new occasion area on our campus. And if we consider that as a gateway to our campus, we even have to consider the web site as a gateway,” stated Trinity President Vanessa Beasley.
This transfer comes at a time when the dreaded demographic cliff — a decline in U.S. brith charges that’s projected to end in a 7.4% lower in 18-year outdated residents between 2026 and 2023 — is impacting the variety of college-aged college students.
On the similar time, the worth of upper training levels is commonly in query; there’s maybe much less understanding of the function of a liberal arts establishment; and recruiters from additional away are flocking to Texas vying for potential college students, Beasley defined.
However Beasley and her group say the brand new branding comes from a spot of energy for the college as they proceed to see wholesome utility and enrollment numbers, rising rankings and monetary assist.
“Trinity is in a extremely good place by way of fundraising and enrollment and in popularity,” stated Tom Evelyn, vice chairman of strategic communications and advertising and marketing. “We’ve been transferring up within the rankings. We’ve had various years of file enrollment, file fundraising, three $25 million plus items over the previous couple of years. …
“But additionally, we are able to’t simply sit on our laurels. The competitors is rising daily for college students.”
Evelyn, joined Trinity a few yr in the past and led the rebrand effort. The small liberal arts college — which has an enrollment of about 2,800 college students and student-faculty ratios of about 9-to-1 — has an endowment valued at $2 billion, with curiosity/earnings that assist about 40% of the college’s operations, scholarship funds, college assist and extra.
Trinity can also be the one liberal arts and sciences college situated in a big metropolitan space, Evelyn stated. The web site redesign will place San Antonio entrance and middle of the varsity’s messaging to draw college students who’re searching for the standard liberal arts school expertise however in a metropolis the place they will additionally have interaction with a broader neighborhood.
To not contemplate a greater solution to current what Trinity has to supply to college students and households in and outdoors of Texas, can be a disservice to what the state affords and to the choices these college students get to contemplate, Beasley stated.
“[Recruiters] know [this is] the place the scholars are, the place the expertise is. Frankly, [this is] the place the vitality is,” Beasley stated. “So we’d be betraying our personal roots and our love for the neighborhood if we abandon that.”
Nationally ranked
In 2021, simply as Beasley joined Trinity as its twentieth president, the college went from being labeled as a regional establishment to a nationwide one. On the time, its Carnegie Classification — based mostly on the sorts of levels granted, measurement and discipline of examine — jumped from a Grasp’s Faculty to a Baccalaureate Faculty.
Immediately the college ranks No. 37 out of 207 nationwide liberal arts schools within the US Information and World Report rankings, No. 51 amongst personal schools throughout within the nation and No. 19 amongst schools within the South by Forbes.
These nationwide rankings have translated into extra visibility for the college, Beasley stated.
“Our title is exhibiting up in locations that it hasn’t been earlier than,” Beasley stated. “ And we’re discovering that there’s extra site visitors to the web site. There are extra folks saying, “You already know, I by no means heard of Trinity College in Texas. I wish to know extra about it.’”
Since 2021, the variety of new pupil functions at Trinity College has elevated. Officers reported receiving 9,626 functions for enrollment in 2021.
By 2024 that quantity rose to 12,507, then fell barely to 11,927 candidates in 2025, with 11,657 functions thus far this summer season for 2026 enrollment.
To this point this summer season, 28% of candidates have gotten accepted into Trinity for the 2026-27 educational yr, in comparison with a 34% acceptance fee in 2021.
“The college is far completely different from 10 or 11 years in the past,” Clinton Colmenares, senior director of stories and media technique at Trinity stated in an announcement. “The expansion is because of more practical advertising and marketing, inhabitants progress and demographic shifts in Texas, and extra strategic recruitment to draw extra college students with sturdy enrollment potential.”
Trinity’s historical past and future
Evelyn’s group developed the “model refresh” during the last yr, conducting interviews with greater than 300 stakeholders, together with college, employees, alumni and college students to find out what it ought to seem like. The aim was to develop the varsity’s emblem and messaging as an enhancement of their current messaging and never as a full rebranding.
The brand new emblem that includes a maroon solar — which would be the most dramatic seen change — was redesigned utilizing historic photos of earlier Trinity logos, seals, architectural designs and extra.
“A part of our analysis was spending a number of time in our archives taking a look at how we had offered ourselves visually over time,” Evelyn stated. “Going again to our founding in 1869, the very first seal that got here out a few yr after we opened… had the solar in it.”
The Murchison Tower, a 166-foot excessive midcentury fashionable construction that was in-built 1964 as a extremely seen Trinity College landmark, was adopted into its emblem again in 2003 — the final time the college underwent a model replace.
College students climb it twice, as soon as at the start of their educational journey throughout orientation and as soon as as they graduate.
And whereas it’s been an emblem acknowledged by many who’ve crossed paths with Trinity during the last 62 years, Beasley stated the brand new emblem attracts from the college’s complete 157 years of existence.
“The tower emblem is definitely certainly one of our solely logos in all of our historical past that doesn’t both have the solar in it prominently or reference the solar,” she stated. “We’re returning again to a few of our personal historical past with the brand new emblem.”
The athletics emblem that includes the Trinity tiger is not going to change presently, officers stated.
Each Beasley and Evelyn stated a lot of the credit score for the hassle to maintain historical past in thoughts belongs to Trinity archivist Abra Schnur, in addition to college and employees ambassadors who helped information the analysis course of.
The tower stays a recognizable image of the college, Evelyn stated, that might be utilized in a lot of its imagery transferring ahead. However the concept was to let the college’s historical past usher in its future.
“We’re not altering Trinity — and we’re doing this from a place of energy, the place we are able to benefit from this momentum of how properly we’re doing,” Evelyn stated. “We are able to’t relaxation and anticipate others to catch up or take over.”
The San Antonio Report companions with Open Campus on larger training protection.
