We have great faculty members at Trinity! Learn more about Marge Connolly here.
Q: How long have you been at Trinity?
A: This is my twelfth year at Trinity. I came to teaching as a second career after working as a book reviewer and catalog editor.
Q: What's one of your favorite "Trinity stories"?
A: One story I've told many times is how, the first time I came to teach at Trinity, I quit after one year because I thought the work load was too heavy and the learning curve too steep. When I asked Tom Loughran, then a fellow teacher here, how long he thought it would take for me to master the Humane Letters course, he answered honestly, "About five years!" Wow. I didn't think I had five years, this being my second career and all. It took me a while to come to grips with what Kerry Koller had told me when he hired me: "Nothing worth doing is easy." When that sunk in, I took a deep breath and reapplied. And you know what? I still haven't mastered the HL course! But now I don't worry about it, because I understand we're "a community of learners."
Q: What are you reading right now?
A: Next to my bed there is a copy of the New Yorker; a poem Barbara Koller just gave me to read; a Chekhov short story, "In the Ravine"; a very interesting new book, Ivory Vikings, about the Lewis chess pieces; a teen novel called Sophie's World; and twenty-three more books I am hoping to get to.
Q: What's your favorite food?
A: Coffee- does that count as a food? I think it does if you add half & half to it.
Q: What are you listening to?
A: Misa Criolla by Ariel Ramirez. It's an Argentinian setting for the Mass that is Pope Francis' favorite gift to give visitors. It's dynamite.
Q: Do you have any hobbies?
A: I love to garden, and in winter, to make plans to change my garden. I never thought I had any artistic talent, until I realized that gardening is a unique art form that incorporates time as one of its elements.
Q: What do you do to continue learning?
A: I hang out with my senior students in seminar. Every year I learn so much from them about their hopes, their dreams, and the mystery of the human heart.
