When I arrived at Trinity in 1995 and started about the task of creating a magazine for the School, I quickly discovered the importance of the study of Latin at Trinity. It didn’t really matter who I spoke with, everyone mentioned the role of classics. At lunch one day in the dining room I found myself sitting across from Don Connor, the head of the Classics Department, and told him what I had been hearing and asked if he thought this new magazine might have a Latin name or reference. He asked me a few questions about the likely focus of the magazine and told me he would think about it and get back to me. A few days later I received a note that had “Per Saecula” written on it. Thus, Trinity Per Saecula was named.

The creation of the online part of the magazine seemed to call for a new or additional name; something that reflected the relationship between the print and the electronic versions of the publication. Once again I turned to the Classics Department and asked faculty member Bill Pagonis if he thought this new online portion of Trinity Per Saecula might have a Latin name or reference. Shortly after Sine Charta launched I spoke with Bill about the name of this new publication.


KDR: When I approached you about naming the new online magazine I told you that, as the print magazine is named Trinity Per Saecula, it seemed appropriate that the online ...

Immediately after the decision was made to move forward with Sine Charta, I had to decide what would benefit from being moved from print to online and what new content, in addition to John's video interview, should be made available on the Web site.

The sections of the print magazine that should be moved to the Web were clear to me. “Tiger Sports Report” could now list team records as soon as each season ended and not have to wait months to be published in the next edition of the print magazine. The move online also meant that each varsity team could have multiple images and not just one image as was possible in print. "Campus News," with its multiple time-sensitive sections seemed tailor-made to be moved online. Biographies of new faculty and new trustees could now be available throughout the year, easily accessible whenever one was surfing the Web. "Around the Campus," with its topical news stories could be updated weekly online. With "Current Faculty and Staff Notes," and "Former Faculty and Staff Notes," we would gain three significant benefits from the move to the Web. First, news could be updated weekly, allowing current news to be available as it happened so readers could now find out, while the show was still open, that Interim Associate Head Brigitte Bentele and former Middle School administrator and teacher Emily Scharf have their artwork displayed in ...