An Open Letter To The Board of Trustees of Trinity Hall

We applaud your support of education in the Catholic tradition. We oppose your desire to establish a permanent campus in the Chapel Hill neighborhood of Middletown.

You believe that you are being exceptionally generous in endowing a new school. You are not. This is not philanthropy. This is ego.

Your ego demands that you create something new, something that will be your legacy, something that you can brag about at cocktail parties. You are well educated, presumably intelligent people. Yet, you have allowed your ego to overcome your business sense. This is not a good investment and you know it. Your own feasibility study made it clear that the demographics are not in your favor. "The potential pool of female students in the general population of Monmouth County is projected to decline for the next decade and possibly two decades." Apart from the feasibility study is the undeniable fact that Catholic schools have been closing across Monmouth County at an alarming rate.

Despite all this, you insist on destroying a quiet, peaceful neighborhood. We don't want the increased traffic, weekend track meets or drama club performances. Please take your ego and your money and renovate an existing, abandoned Catholic school. It will not destroy our neighborhood. It will cost less and you can divert the savings into more spending on teachers and programs for the students. Isn't that what education is all about? Your legacy should be the quality of the education the Trinity Hall students receive, not the building you leave behind.


Jim Mulvaney
Member of the Chapel Hill Neighborhood Group