Suffolk Welcomes New Community Engagement Director

When Trina Bryant, Suffolk’s new director of the Center for Community Engagement (CCE), looks back over her career in education, she sees a through line guiding all her work.

“I love being able to help students find their calling, their purpose,” Bryant says. “And the Center for Community Engagement provides the kinds of experiences that enable students to do that.”

Bryant’s through line began in South Africa, where, as a young Northeastern grad student, she was part of the team that launched the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. Next it took her back to Boston and to Hyde Park High School’s Social Justice Academy, where for five years she taught AP history and led a winning Model UN program. For the past decade, she held senior leadership roles in both academic and student affairs at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy—while also earning her EdD in higher education leadership from Regis College.

Bryant joined Suffolk at the start of the spring term, and has spent her first two months getting to know both the University and CCE’s wide range of programs and community partnerships, which helped earn Suffolk a Top 25 ranking for service in Washington Monthly’s 2023 college guide. She’s also begun to look ahead to future projects, including managing the 2025 recertification process for the Carnegie Foundation—a comprehensive, campus-wide survey that documents the full sweep of Suffolk’s community engagement and impact.

Also high on her list for the 2024–25 academic year: Expanding Suffolk’s popular Alternative Spring Break program to include more international service-learning travel, starting with a May 2025 trip to Ghana.

A two-time Fulbright-Hays Scholar whose studies and work have taken her to four continents, Bryant knows firsthand how much travel and service have to teach—how they can plunge you into wildly different communities and cultures while reinforcing all we have in common. “The bottom line,” she says, “is that it brings us all together. I want to provide students with more of these opportunities to explore, reflect, serve, and find their purpose.”

The entire Suffolk community can take part in the Center for Community Engagement’s work on Friday, April 5 as part of the center’s annual Service Day. Learn more here.