Small size, bigger impacts
Published 12:01 am Wednesday, April 27, 2011
To John Reed, the still-new president of Trinity Lutheran College in downtown Everett, small is the new big.
To be sure, this small liberal arts college is growing at a healthy pace. Soon after it moved from Issaquah into the former Bon Marché building at Wetmore Avenue and California Street in 2008, total enrollment was just under 90 students. Now it’s at about 160, and a new strategic plan aims to roughly double that by 2014.
Reaching that goal would put Trinity Lutheran on a solid financial footing, Reed figures. Yet it would remain small enough to offer big benefits to students in the form of individual attention, and nimble enough to keep innovating as an institution.
Reed, a self-described “change guy” who was named president last year after serving as the college’s CEO, is building on a sound foundation. Trinity Lutheran thoroughly remodeled and modernized its five-story building, which houses four-year degree programs in 10 majors, along with several one- and two-year programs. It owns the parking garage across the street, the roof of which sports a working garden and children’s learning area. Students live in nearby apartments on Hoyt Avenue — swanky housing by college standards.
The pace of change is quickening, to the mutual benefit of students and the downtown neighborhood. Students are taking advantage of opportunities for community service. Earlier this month, the college staged performances of “The Fantastiks” at the Historic Everett Theatre. Men’s and women’s soccer teams completed a successful first season, and cross country and golf teams are ramping up. (Athletics should help fuel enrollment growth.)
Perhaps the most apparent benefit to Everett is the vitality that scores of enthusiastic, engaged, live-in college students bring to the downtown core. Trinity has taken ownership not only of a piece of downtown real estate, but of a responsibility to be an active and productive member of the community.
It’s a relationship that’s off to a stronger start than most could have imagined. Its future looks big, indeed.
