Grinnell College
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Grinnell College is a liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa. It was founded in 1846, when a group of transplanted New England Congregationalists with a strong social-reformer orientation formed the Trustees of Iowa College.
Grinnell has ranked in the top fifteen liberal arts colleges according to the magazine U.S. News & World Report[link] since the inception of its rankings, as well as "best all-around " liberal arts college in 2004, according to Newsweek magazine[link]. In 2006, The Chronicle of Higher Education called Grinnell the "wealthiest liberal arts college" in the nation. [link].
History
The college was founded as Iowa College in Davenport, Iowa, in 1846 and was known by that name until 1909 when the Board of Trustees officially adopted its current name. Iowa College had moved from Davenport to the town of Grinnell in the mid-19th century, after the college was invited by Josiah Bushnell Grinnell (to whom Horace Greeley purportedly gave his famous advice, "Go West, young man") to move to his newly-founded town, located at the intersection of two major railroads. Today a railroad still cuts across the college campus.
In 1882, a cyclone destroyed both college buildings.
Campus
Grinnell College is located in the town of Grinnell, Iowa, halfway between Des Moines and Iowa City. The campus features sixty-three buildings ranging in architectural style from Collegiate Gothic to Bauhaus. The campus is divided into three sections: North Campus, East Campus, and South Campus. Each campuses' dormitories are connected by a loggia, an architectural signature of the college.
The college also maintains a 365-acre environmental research area called the Conard Environmental Research Area (CERA). The U.S. Green Building Council awarded CERA's Environmental Education Center a gold certification. The building is the first in Iowa to receive the designation.
Many building projects have been undertaken in recent years at the College including a new athletics center, a performing arts center designed by César Pelli, the renovation of its science building, and the Joe Rosenfield Student Center.
Academics
Grinnell is one of the few colleges with an "open curriculum," meaning students are free from general requirements, with the exception of a writing-intensive "tutorial" during the first year. Grinnell offers academic programs through twenty-six major departments and ten interdisciplinary concentrations. Popular majors include biology, history, English, political science, and economics.
An unusually high proportion of Grinnell's graduates go on to earn Ph.D.s. Recent data place Grinnell no. 10 of all U.S. institutions for the proportion of graduates who go on to earn Ph.D. degrees and no. 15 for graduating female Ph.D. earners.[[Citing sources citation needed]]
Over half of the student body at Grinnell studies abroad for a semester at some point. Grinnell has a campus in London, Grinnell-in-London, as well as Grinnell-in-Washington D.C.
Tuition
Grinnell's combined tuition, room, board, and fees for 2006-2007 academic year is $36,730. Tuition and fees were $29,030 while room and board was $7,700. Grinnell retains one of the few need-blind admissions policies in the US, with a high proportion of its students receiving some form of financial aid.As of the 2006-2007 school year, Grinnell has abandoned its need-blind policy for international applicants.
Grinnell is anticipating a comprehensive fee increase of $5000 or more to be implemented for the 2007-2008 academic year. Students graduating in 2010 or earlier would be 'grandfathered' in, and receive a more typical increase of around 5%. Many trustees and members of the administration (including President Russell Osgood) believe that Grinnell's tuition should be closer to its midwest peers, as that "reflects Grinnell's true value." However, many question whether Grinnell truly needs that much additional revenue.
Athletics
The school's varsity sports teams are known as the Pioneers. They participate in eighteen intercollegiate sports at the NCAA Division III level and in the Midwest Conference. In addition, Grinnell has several club sports teams that compete in non-varsity sports such as waterpolo, Ultimate and rugby. The waterpolo team, the Wild Turkeys, plays in the Heartland division of CWPA and goes to nationals almost every year.
Grinnell's athletic teams are highly competitive in the Midwest Conference. The men's cross country team, coached by Will and Evelyn Freeman, has won 19 of the past 20 conference championships. The women's and men's swimming and diving teams, coached by Erin Hurley, also have current multi-year streaks of conference championships.
In February 2005, Grinnell became one of the first Division III schools to broadcast a non-championship basketball game on national television when it faced off against the Beloit Buccaneers on ESPN 2, in which Grinnell lost 86 to 85. Grinnell College's basketball team attracted ESPN's due to the team's unique style of playing basketball, known simply as "The System." In a fashion much like an ice hockey match, "The System" incorporates constant full-court press, continual running, hard rebounding, near constant three-point shots and repeated substitutions of entire squads. "The System" been criticized for not teaching the principles of defense or cultivation of the short shot. However, under "The System," Grinnell has won numerous championships over the last five years, as well as broken many NCAA individual and team scoring records.
Social Activities and Organizations
Service organizations are popular. The Alternative Break ("AltBreak") program takes students to pursue service initiatives during school holidays and Grinnell produces more Peace Corps volunteers per capita than any other college in the nation. The college also runs its own post-graduation service program known as Grinnell Corps in Grinnell, China, Macao, Namibia, Lesotho, Greece, and Nepal.
The Scarlet and Black is the campus newspaper and KDIC broadcasts college radio.
There are also a number of student groups on campus. These include everything from an improv comedy troupe to video game clubs to an active belly dancing group to a Family Guy appreciation group to a branch of a national boffer-sword fighting group Dagorhir to the newly founded Grinnell Nerf. In addition, there are a number of musical groups on campus, including four a capella groups, the G-Tones, Vox, Con Brio, and the Young Gifted and Black choir (participants however need only fill one of those three requirements).
Social activities tend to be informal and centered around campus, but several major campus-wide events take place each year. 10/10 is a "campus-unity" themed party that takes place on October 10th and features an all-campus shot at midnight. "Mary B. James," named for a South Campus dormitory, is a popular cross-dressers' ball. There is an annual "Disco" celebration and two formal "waltzes" are held each year. Another significant party is "Block Party," in which the block on High Street directly south of campus is closed off on the last day of finals and a beer truck arrives at 11 am. Students proceed to take several beers to the face while sitting in the street playing drinking games.
Grinnell College has an active campus-wide blog community. The system used at Grinnell is an unofficial service known as GrinnellPlans. Membership is limited to students, faculty, and alumni.
Myths and legends
Like most colleges, a large body of myths has accumulated over the years.One of the most persistent was the notion that the Quad Dining Hall, with its high ceiling, dark wood paneled walls, and stained glass windows, was supposed to be a church. The legend claims that money was bequeathed to the college to build a chapel, but the college needed a dining hall, so it built something that could be used as either. The Legend of Quad (which was actually built to look like a dining hall at Oxford College) -- complete with details such as an annual carrying-in of pews for a church service -- was born.
In the early 80's the Campus had several meetings over the hiring of a football coach who actually wanted to win games, and also the restoration, after many, many years, of a female cheerleading squad. Grinnell students at the time wanted none of that.
Another story, apparently started in the late 80s, was that the football coach was fired after being denounced in the student newspaper "for winning too many games." The Scarlet and Black's editors were concerned about what they perceived as an over-emphasis on athletics compared to academics, but the coach in question was not actually fired.
Another myth involves the idea that there are three (and only three) things that will result in instant expulsion from the school irrelevant of any other factor. Exactly what the three things are varies somewhat -- the most commonly mentioned offenses are jumping a ride on a train passing through campus, entering the steam tunnels, and gaining access to the roof of an academic building.
Prominent alumni
- Benjamin Barber, political theorist
- Emily Bergl, actor
- Nordahl Brue, lawyer/entrepreneur, founder of Bruegger's Bagels
- Thomas R. Cech, Nobel Laureate chemist, president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Amy Clampitt, poet
- Tom Cole, U.S. Congressman (2002-present)
- Mary Sue Coleman, President of the University of Michigan
- Gary Cooper, actor
- Peter Coyote, actor
- Hallie Flanagan, playwright, educator, and director of the Federal Theater Project
- John Garang, former leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army and former vice president of Sudan
- James Norman Hall, author
- Herbie Hancock, jazz musician and composer
- Curtis Harnack, writer
- Edward Hirsch, poet
- Harry Hopkins, WPA administrator and architect of the New Deal
- William S. Kenyon, politician, U.S. Senator (1911-1922)
- Walter Koenig, actor
- George Moose, diplomat
- David Mura, poet
- Robert Noyce, co-founder of Intel, co-inventor of integrated circuit
- Clair Patterson, geochemist and environmentalist
- Ian Roberts, actor
- Morgan Taylor, Olympic track and field medalist
- Charles R. Wall, Senior Vice President of Altria Group.
- Otha Wearin, politician, U.S. Congressman (1933-1939)
- Joseph Welch, attorney who represented the U.S. Army in Army-McCarthy Hearings
- Alan Wheat, politician, U.S. Congressman (1983-1995)
Virtual communities and social networking websites
GrinnellPlans is a virtual community consisting of 2,994 members as of June 24th, 2006 [link]. Most members are current students or alumni, but faculty, staff members, and (by invitation) other friends of the College have also joined.Numerous other Grinnell College virtual communities exist, such the [Grinnell College Student/Alumni MySpace Group], another [popular networking site] (no longer requires an invitation), the [Grinnell College Orkut Community] (requires login), and the [Grinnellian Livejournal Community]. [Facebook], which opened to Grinnell College in November 2004, is also popular with students.
External links
- [Grinnell College Homepage]
- [Grinnell Plans]. Documentation at [link]
- [Grinnell Gallery]
- [Grinnell College featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education - April 2006]
- Гринелски колеж is [cryllic spelling] for Grinnell College.
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