Spring 2016

In this Issue

Changing your career can be challenging or exhilarating or, for many people, much too scary to contemplate. We may feel stuck or unwilling to change because of finances or geography. We’re too afraid to start over and tackle what’s unfamiliar or unknown. Or our job is so much a part of our...

Student research opportunities at Grinnell are abundant and diverse. In 2014–15, 40 percent of students completed a Mentored Advanced Project or MAP — a distinctive Grinnell program that provides exposure to research methods, collaboration with faculty, and deep career insights. It’s one reason...

“Scramble the brain, Senn. Scramble the brain!”

Forty years later, this advice from Professor of Biology Irving Y. Fishman sticks with me still. I was struggling to “pith” the brain of a rather unwilling frog with my lab partner, John Malkinson ’79. It...

Since fall 2014, nearly 150 Grinnell College students have volunteered to teach workshops on campus to children from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. 

“I hope they discover something about teaching they didn’t know,” says Ashley Schaefer, Ignite Program coordinator...

Bill Ferguson ’75, Gertrude B. Austin Professor of Economics, gave the second annual Grinnell Lecture to his fellow faculty members Feb. 5. Collective-action problems arise whenever individuals pursuing their own interests cause undesirable outcomes for a group. This relatively simple notion...

During Grinnell’s weeklong fall break, 11 students in Opera, Politics, and Society in Modern Europe left the classroom for San Francisco with Kelly Maynard, assistant professor of history, to get an up-close look at how politics and culture influence the development of modern...

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has awarded individual creative writing fellowships of $25,000 each to 37 fiction and creative nonfiction writers, including Dean Bakopoulos, writer-in-residence at Grinnell College. 

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In the midst of the national outcry about student safety on college campuses, concern about alcohol, drugs, and sexual assault is central to many conversations surrounding student well-being. While it’s clear that students on every campus are facing these issues, it can be difficult, from the...

Taylor Watts ’16, a French and anthropology major, recently received second prize in the 2015 France on Campus Award competition, sponsored by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. 

 “The France on Campus Award competition is open to all U.S. colleges and universities, so Watts’...

It started with strangers on a train — very seldom does one get to say that anymore. The year was 1964, and it was this chance encounter that led to Wilfried Prewo ’70’s Grinnell experience, which changed his life and made his recent and future gifts to the College possible.