The Bicentennial Ivy: One for the Ages


Something very special happened during our years at Trinity that we'll never forget. It wasn't one thing. It was a million of them. These were truly halcyon days and a happy time unlike any other. 

Most of us have a record of those years in the form of a copy of The Ivy from the year we graduated. And yet, each of us has more than that. Each of us possesses a trove of personal photos that we accumulated during our years at Trinity. We're talking about those candid snapshots that are sitting in a photo album or in a dusty shoebox you haven't looked at in years. They show friends, parties, sporting events, tailgates, and commencement, but they might also include pix of you sharing a pizza with neighbors in your Jarvis living room at 2am because you were both up studying. It could be almost anything. That's the beauty of these images. 

At the time, these photos may have seemed almost silly, but today they're anything but silly. Your photos chronicle the Trinity Experience. And not just the experience you see in the yearbook. They're as real as it gets. And that makes them worth preserving. 

Let's make a once-in-a-lifetime edition of The Ivy.

So here's the idea—we want to accumulate as many alumni photos from your college days as possible. We want thousands of them. Then we plan to publish as many as we can in a special Bicentennial edition of The Ivy that will live forever. It'll be an actual printed book as well as some photos you can see online.

To our knowledge, nothing like this has ever been done before by our peer institutions, so there's some pride in there as well. We want to show the world that the Trinity Experience is something special. 

Plus we want to send a message that our alumni don't mind taking the lead when we see a good idea. We're pretty sure other schools will emulate this project once we get this going, but we want to be first. 

Call it Bantam pride.

How will this work you ask? 

Photos will be collected, then a book will be designed based on the content submitted. Books will then be sold directly through an online publisher.  

You can email photos to BicentennialIvyPix@gmail.com or upload them to our dedicated space in the cloud (TBD). Ideally, we'd like digital photos to be high-resolution images, so we would prefer at least 300 pixels per inch (PPI). Acceptable formats include: JPEG, GIF, TIFF, PNG, RAW or PSD. Please include the names of people in the images and the approximate date so we make that part of the record.

If you have prints, but can't send a digital image, no worries. You can mail us your photos. We'll scan them, then return them to you. Contact us at BicentennialIvyPix@gmail.com for mailing instructions.

Images must be submitted by 11/30/22 to be included. This will be a curated collection, so there will be both a printed book and a larger online collection. 

The target date for a printed publication is 3/1/23. Details of an online publisher will be shared once we finalize the vendor. 

This is an independent project.

Sometimes an idea is too good to die. The idea of a special edition of The Ivy comprised of images submitted by alumni was presented to the Bicentennial Committee in 2021, but rejected. No matter. The Bicentennial Ivy lives on, regardless. This book will bring joy to generations of alumni and their families, while creating an enduring, authentic tribute to the Trinity Experience.    


Alumni for a Better Trinity

Facebook moderators in Alumni for a Better Trinity will be leading this project. In case you didn't know, Alumni for a Better Trinity is the largest alumni-led network in social media among the 11 NESCAC colleges. (Yes, we're #1 in the NESCAC.) It’s a closed Facebook group, but all alumni are welcome. Nearly 10% of all Trinity alumni are members, so thousands of alumni keep their finger on the pulse of the school through the group every day.  

We're happy to help you.

If you have any questions or need help in any way, please don't hesitate to contact us at BicentennialIvyPix@gmail.com. 

Thank you for enthusiastically participating. We aim to make this a project that people will talk about forever.

Robert Bibow '89

Supriyo Chatterjee M'92

Brendan Clark '21

Kevin Derby '96

Douglas Kim '87



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