The Trinity Perspective | Fall 2019

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Shifting the Field Trinity students use drones to 3D map fault lines

150 Years of Academic Excellence At Trinity, academic excellence has always been expected. Trinity students live in an increasingly diverse and interconnected world where borders mean less and collaboration, tolerance, and intercultural communication mean more. Trinity offers a rigorous yet flexible curriculum that blends the liberal arts and sciences with business and pre-professional programs, enhanced with a wide range of interdisciplinary programs and opportunities for hands-on learning opportunities.

Over the past 150 years, Trinity students have discovered why the University has always prided itself on experiential education: because there’s no teacher like experience. Students in the late 1800s took “The Bible as Literature” class beyond the book, incorporating research projects into their interactive class sessions, while students in civil engineering and teaching completed apprenticeships to prepare themselves for careers in their fields. And in the early 1900s, students in sociology courses gathered living conditions data in underserved neighborhoods, while students in biology labs conducted surveys of homes with mosquito infestations.

That spirit of collaboration and enterprise has remained rooted in the University’s culture for more than a century. Today, Trinity students are making innovative use of drones to study fault lines and uncover natural resources in Utah, and developing new types of wound dressings to prevent diabetes patients from losing limbs to amputation. At Trinity, students don’t settle for experiencing the real world—they use their talents to make a real-world difference.

And with a 9:1 student-to-faculty ratio, Trinity offers ample opportunities for students to collaborate with award-winning faculty (No. 6 in the nation) who often become mentors and friends. Surrounded by supportive professors and award-winning facilities, Trinity students are primed to develop more than short-term skills: Here, Tigers become lifelong learners.

The Trinity Perspective magazine is produced quarterly. Through these pages, explore the many facets of life at Trinity University and get to know the students, faculty, and staff that call Trinity home. With the vibrant city of San Antonio as a backdrop, discover the many benefits and opportunities our community has to offer. We invite you to read these pages to explore some of the many ways we make a great education possible, then visit our 125-acre campus to see it firsthand.

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ABOUT TRINITY Trinity University is a private, residential, co-educational institution with an undergraduate focus. So, what does that mean? It means that we focus on YOU—connecting you with the best possible resources, caring faculty members, committed staff members, and other world-class students destined to have a positive impact in our community.

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We don’t wait, we do.

Box Office Business In one Business Analytics and Technology course, students help businesses use data to answer valuable questions. This past spring, students consulted for Santikos Entertainment, a popular San Antonio movie theater company. They used real data provided by Santikos to help the company answer questions about revenue and demographics, loyalty programs,

At Trinity, academics

and alcohol and arcade game sales.

mean more than just words on a whiteboard. Students dive into hands-on learning experiences inside and outside the classroom, learning how to enact realworld change while in a supportive environment.

Spreading Goodwill As part of a 14-year community partnership with Goodwill San Antonio, engineering science students at Trinity create adaptive tool and equipment prototypes to help people with disabilities better perform their jobs.

Some of the tools students engineered this year include an ironing board and a knife and cutting board designed to help visually impaired people; a chainsaw that reduces kickback for people with missing limbs; a sorting rig to help people with mobility issues quickly process donated clothes; and gloves that help employees with limited tactile ability apply stickers to merchandise easier.

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I never thought something like gerrymandering would overlap with math. This is the type of opportunity—to work on something like this—I never imagined I’d get when I came to Trinity.

Electoral Geometry

- ALICE VON ENDE-BECKER ’19

In his modern math course, professor Cabral Balreira teaches students about the calculations behind gerrymandering— manipulating district boundaries to favor a political party. Alice Von Ende-Becker ’19 took that one step further and, as part of her senior capstone project, helped Balreira examine the potential link between gerrymandering and Texas elections. The pair’s project collected electoral data from 36 recent U.S. Congressional races in Texas.

They used a dizzying array of complex mathematical and geometric concepts to start sifting through Texas’ electoral data, creating an “efficiency gap” that will serve as a launching point for future gerrymandering research.

Beat Your Own Drum In Trinity’s electronic music class, the only course requirements are a Soundcloud account and a good pair of headphones. Students in the class learn how to synthesize original sounds and manipulate audio, and though the course started out as a historical survey, it has evolved into a class where undergraduates create their own music. Assignments include scoring a short film and creating an entire composition with only a recording of a single word.

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Shifting the Field Trinity team uses drones to 3D map fault lines, opening up new possibilities for earthquake research, groundwater resources, and oil exploration

By Jeremy Gerlach

Trinity geosciences professor Ben Surpless has always wanted his students to be able to study fault lines from the top of a 200-foot cliff. But he’s also held on tightly to another dream: not having them plunge to their deaths.

“People told me, ‘Oh, you should learn how to rappel,’” says Surpless of his geology exploits, “but in reality, one rope on the side of a cliff… that’s not an effective use of my time and energy, and I also don’t want to die.”

So, Surpless and geology majors Caroline McKeighan ’19 and Curtis Segarra ’19 have landed on a less precarious solution: using drones to produce 3D maps of a fault system. This innovative method is opening a door for faster and more efficient research on gas and oil recovery, groundwater flow, geothermal energy, and even earthquakes.

“With drones, you can get at data that you couldn’t possibly get at without that additional step [of climbing rocks],” Surpless says.

When McKeighan and Segarra accompanied Surpless on the trip to Utah—where desert temperatures among the alien-like, bright-red rock

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formations soared above 105 degrees by day and down into the 40s at night—this research method allowed Surpless and his students to work smarter, not harder.

Drones with stabilizing cameras flew over the Utah fault zone—which typically includes challenging topography ranging from hundredfoot cliffs and outcrops to deep ravines and gullies—taking 4K video of the geological formation from multiple angles.

Data from the research done by Surpless’ group, funded by the National Science Foundation in partnership with the Keck Consortium and students from the College of Wooster (Charley Hankla) and Mount Holyoke College (Madison Woodley), will take time to process, but it has already produced a groundbreaking new model for fault system mapping.

Surpless’ group has used a specialized software package, Agisoft PhotoScan Professional, to transform the footage into hundreds of photos with millions of specialized spatial points, creating a 3D mesh—or model—that can be laid out over a geographic area. When paired with real-world coordinates in ArcGIS software, this map can serve as a functional reference for geoscientists running numerical computer simulations of major fault systems.

With us so far? Here’s what this all means: Surpless’ two students had the opportunity to

turn the visual data from the drone footage into a model for predicting how fault lines will act, crack, and develop in the future.

McKeighan has used the drone videos, cut into thousands of individual still images, to build a massive digital model of the Utah cliffs, complete with fault zone cracks. Segarra has then incorporated this data into a still-developing, mathematical computer model that can simulate how different types of ground layers react to a fault cutting into those layers. This theoretical— but data-driven—viewpoint helps provide a valuable predictive function.

“What’s neat is that once Curtis’ model becomes robust, we might be able to use his results to field test what Caroline has done,” Surpless explains.

In other words, Surpless’ team is building the framework for a program that can do more than look beneath the surface: it can predict the future of where valuable underground resources trapped between massive geological formations will eventually settle.

“That’s what every journal, every publication is going to want to know: what’s at stake here? And in the end, it’s about resources,” he continues.

“Whether it’s water, oil, natural gas, geothermal energy, all of these things flow as fluids through these fractures.”

Beyond the flashy use of drones, this feat

relies on a level of undergraduate involvement that’s just as innovative as the tech itself. But at Trinity, Surpless says, he has the time and resources to develop rock-solid relationships with his undergrads.

“I’ve had both Caroline and Curtis in class, so I know where their strengths are,” Surpless says.

“I can design projects for them that will benefit my research, but also that will help them take advantage of their strengths. In the end, they cannot help but leave Trinity having learned a great deal.”

Both McKeighan and Segarra have presented their research at the 2019 Cordilleran Section Geological Society of America meeting in Portland, Ore. Surpless plans to submit a manuscript related to Segarra’s modeling, as well as use McKeighan’s thesis to help write a major NSF grant proposal. Beyond that, Surpless says, he wouldn’t be surprised if rumblings of his team’s findings make it into national scientific publications.

“That’s something that happens at Trinity pretty commonly—an undergraduate paper or thesis becomes the seed for major, peer-reviewed publication,” Surpless explains. “And perhaps even one that can shift the way research is done in an entire field.”

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Choose 49 61 your own path MAJORS

MINORS

Accounting African American Studies American Intercultural Studies Ancient Mediterranean Studies Anthropology Applied Chemistry Architectural Studies Art Art and Art History Art History Arts, Letters, and Enterprise Astronomy Biochemistry Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Biology Biomathematics Business Administration Business Administration Legal Studies Business Analytics and Technology Chemistry Chinese Chinese Studies Classical Languages Classical Studies Communication Communication Management Comparative Literature Computer Science Creative Writing Earth Systems Science East Asian Studies Economics Education Engineering Science English Entrepreneurship Environmental Studies Ethics Film Studies Finance

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Majors

Grad Minors Programs

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GRAD

PROGRAMS

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ADVISING PROGRAMS

French Geosciences German German Studies Global Latinx Studies Greek Health Care Administration History History of Philosophy Human Communication International Business International Studies Latin Linguistics Logic and Philosophy of Cognition Management Information Systems Mathematical Finance Mathematics Medieval Renaissance Studies Music Music Composition Music Performance Neuroscience New Media Philosophy Philosophy of Art Physics Political Science Psychology Religion Russian Scientific Computing Sociology Spanish Sport Management Studio Art Teaching Theatre Urban Studies Women’s and Gender Studies

Majors

an option to create your own major Grad Minors Programs

Brand new for Fall 2019

Trinity has added a major in global Latinx studies and a minor in architectural studies.

Global Latinx Studies The major in global Latinx studies is an interdisciplinary analysis of the Latinx experience from past to present.

Spanning the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences, the major focuses on the Latinx diasporas throughout the world, including communities with a shared colonial past with Spain and Portugal. Through coursework in leadership development, intercultural capacities, and linguistic fluency, students tie together interdisciplinary links in history, economics, cultural studies, and religion.

Architectural Studies The minor in architectural studies provides an interdisciplinary series of courses in which students are immersed in the world of architecture, exploring elements of design, history, and urbanism. The minor arms students with handson experiences to pursue graduate study or careers in architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, historic preservation, and architectural history.

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Up to Code

There are so many things I like about computer science at Trinity, but I think our relationships with faculty

Computer science major balances internships,

are the most important. I get to know all our professors in the department. I can walk into any professor’s office at almost any time and just have a conversation.

thesis, and inclusivity When Morgan King ’19 arrived at Trinity, she fell in love with computer science. But she also realized that to many women, her story was an exception.

“By the time you hit middle school,” King explains, “you’re seeing movies and TV shows with hackers, nerds, and people in tech, all where the person behind the computer is a guy. And this is where you start to see stereotypes [about men and women in computing] develop. As a girl, you start to feel more self-conscious…about being the only girl in a class, or in your computer lab.”

King became president of Trinity University’s Women in Computing Club (TUWIC). She organized initiatives such as the annual TUWIC Tech Camp, which gives local middle school girls the chance to learn about computing through logic games and practice with algorithms.

King even traveled to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, the

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largest conference for women in computer science in the country. She found more than just inspiration at this conference though—King landed her post-grad internship with Bank of America there.

This internship comes on the heels of other impressive industry-level experiences as an undergraduate. She was awarded the computer science department’s BabbageLovelace Award, served as a tutor for Trinity’s computer science tutoring program, and completed software engineering internships at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory in Boston and at Globalscape in San Antonio.

For King, maintaining close relationships to faculty has been a major key to this success.

“There are so many things I like about computer science at Trinity, but I think our relationships with faculty are the most important,” King says. “I get to know all our

professors in the department. I can walk into any professor’s office at almost any time and just have a conversation.”

Those close relationships also paid huge dividends as she completed her senior thesis about bioinformatics, or using machine learning to help map genetic information.

“It’s exciting that I spent three semesters exploring a different side of computing I had no idea existed and contributing new research to this field,” King says. “When I came to college, I had wanted to explore the medical field and work with medical technology, because that’s super impactful. And this research was a way for me to do that, which is exciting.”

“When you leave Trinity,” King adds, “it’s exciting to know that you’ve created something new.”

Apply Early, Know Early

Financial Aid Application Dates

Applications Available Online for Trinity’s Class of 2024 Common Application Coalition Application ApplyTexas

Trinity recommends submitting your financial aid applications by your corresponding admission deadline.

CSS Profile The 2020-21 application will be available

Oct. 1, 2019

Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)

Application Deadlines

The 2020-21 application will be available

APPLICATION DEADLINE

DECISION NOTIFICATION

DEPOSIT DEADLINE

Early Decision I (binding)

Nov. 1

Dec. 1

Feb. 1

Early Action

Nov. 1

Dec. 15

May 1

Early Decision II (binding)

Jan. 15

Feb. 1

Mar. 1

Regular Decision

Jan. 15

Mar. 15

May 1

Apply now at

trinity.edu/apply

The College Search: An experience for the whole family The college search is a fun and exciting time for students and families. Students get to celebrate their academic and co-curricular accomplishments and reflect upon their experiences as they chart their journeys forward. Here at Trinity, we appreciate the significance of the

college search experience, and it centers on you.

Throughout this process, we encourage future Tigers to discover new interests, grow existing passions, and become empowered citizens of the global community. Seek support from your friends, family, and parents

along the way. They can help you with your essays, be another set of eyes, ears, or taste buds on a campus visit, and guide you through the tough decisions that come along with the many opportunities in your future.

Resources for parents and families are available online at gotu.us/parents.

Oct. 1, 2019

Visit Campus For A Trinity In Focus Program We invite you and your family to attend a Saturday Trinity In Focus open house program. These programs are an excellent way to discover the many opportunities available to students who study and live at Trinity University.

UPCOMING DATES: Sept. 21, 2019 Nov. 16, 2019 Jan. 25, 2020 Plan your visit: gotu.us/visit

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9:1 student-to-

QUICK FACTS

faculty ratio 100% of faculty hold doctoral or terminal degrees

Private, residential, co-educational, undergraduate-focused Founded in 1869 6 minutes from San Antonio International Airport Located in America’s 7th largest city

2,480

undergraduates from 47 states and 63 countries 8% international students

125

6

acre campus located in a residential neighborhood

minutes from downtown San Antonio

A D M IT T ED S TUDENT P RO FILE * Fall 2019 Entry Term

3.73

31.4

1398

A- grade average

30–33 mid 50%

1330–1470 mid 50%

average GPA

average ACT

average SAT

*as of June 1, 2019

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