Beginning again both holds promise and calls for resolve. Entering a third year of a global pandemic, opening a new chapter, rethinking long-lived practices, re-engaging in what had been paused during the height of the pandemic — the stories featured in this edition of The Grinnell Magazine will prompt us to think about what it means to begin again. The combination of promise and resolve in beginning again opens up a space of exploration: What can we do differently this time? What did we learn last time? Who else is at the table now? What other considerations have arisen?
To begin again, to engage with promise and resolve, is an approach that is nurtured by Grinnell’s sense of exploration. To rethink the existing system of general education requirements 50 years ago to create an individually advised curriculum; to redesign how students engage with STEM fields and assemble the Grinnell Science Project 25 years ago; and currently, to reconceptualize how collegiate residence life can be enhanced by a residential curriculum — all ways that Grinnellians have collaborated to create new beginnings.
I now take that lesson to thinking about what Grinnell College can mean to its constituents and to how the College begins again each time it gathers in community — whether at the beginning of a semester, during a class reunion, or in reading the pages of this publication.
In my own practice, the start of every semester calls for beginning again. A new start, a new syllabus, a new roster of students, a new set of possibilities for knowledge and exploration. In teaching art history for many years, I was always fascinated by how a work of art was never static, even if it was still in a museum; how the process of meaning began again with each new viewer and what they brought to it. What Mona Lisa is smiling about is different for everyone; every work of art begins again with every new viewer. I now take that lesson to thinking about what Grinnell College can mean to its constituents and to how the College begins again each time it gathers in community — whether at the beginning of a semester, during a class reunion, or in reading the pages of this publication.
A dynamic of beginning again initiated with the academic rhythms and explorations of the College creates momentum for a lifetime of rethinking and re-imagining. My admiration for Grinnellians who begin again and rethink systems, ideas, and communities is boundless. In these pages, on our campus, and among our alumni are demonstrations of what is possible when Grinnellians bring promise and resolve and renewal as they begin again. I wish you well in all your renewed beginnings.
“I now take that lesson to thinking about what Grinnell College can mean to its constituents and to how the College begins again each time it gathers in community — whether at the beginning of a semester, during a class reunion, or in reading the pages of this publication.”
