Trine was founded in 1884 as Tri-State Normal College, and retained the reference to the "tri-state" area for more than 120 years because of its location in Indiana and proximity to Michigan and Ohio. In 1906 the school was renamed Tri-State College, and in 1975 Tri-State University. In 2008, the school's name was changed to the Trine University, in honor of alumnus Dr. Ralph Trine and his wife Sheri. The dropping of the "tri-state" identifier reflected a desire to brand the school as a nationally competitive private university, not to be mistaken for state-funded or associated with businesses or organizations nationwide also using the term "tri-state". During the 1990s, the university opened several satellite campuses throughout northern and central Indiana.
Campus
Trine's main campus covers 450 acres in Angola, Indiana. Graduate programs for the Rinker-Ross School of Health Sciences are housed at Trine's Health Sciences Education Center in Fort Wayne. There is another campus for the College of Graduate and Professional Studies in Angola, as well as other satellite campuses in Fort Wayne and Detroit, Michigan.
Trine offers associate's degrees, bachelor's degrees, master's degrees and a doctorate in 36 fields of study and has a 15:1 student-to-faculty ratio. It launched a Master of Physician Assistant Studies degree in fall 2018 and is planning a major expansion to its health sciences programs.
Trine sports teams are known as the Thunder. Trine has been a member of National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III and the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the nation's oldest athletic conference, since 2004. It has more than 600 student athletes who compete in 32 varsity sports, and added men's and women's hockey in the fall of 2017. Men's volleyball, which had last played at the varsity level in 2002, returned to full varsity status for the 2019 season and plays in the Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League. Trine's Zollner Golf Course hosted the 2012 NCAA Division III Women's Golf National Championships. Men's golf coach Bill SanGiacomo has more than 45 years of service at the school and is a member of the school's athletic hall of fame. He has led Trine golf teams to 14 appearances in the National Championships.
Notable alumni
Ralph Ketner – In 1957, Ketner co-founded Food Town, later to become Food Lion, a successful 1,300 store grocery chain in the mid-Atlantic and southeast United States. Until he died in 2016, he kept an office at Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C. where he was a consultant to the business school.
Gustavo Rojas Pinilla – the 19thPresident of Colombia from June 1953 to May 1957. An Army general, he mounted a successful coup d'état against incumbent President Laureano Gómez Castro, imposing martial law and establishing a dictatorship-style government in Colombia. Rojas enacted legislation that gave women equal rights to vote. He introduced the television and constructed several hospitals, universities and the National Astronomic Observatory.
Rupa Shanmugam – President and COO of SoPark Corporation in New York.
Erik Watt – Gagliardi Trophy Winner.
Adam Shiltz – All-MIAA Conference First Team Pitcher 2008.
