Mission Statement:
When Grinnell College framed its charter in the Iowa Territory of
the United States in 1846, it set forth a mission to educate its students
"for the different professions and for the honorable discharge of the
duties of life." The College pursues that mission by educating young men
and women in the liberal arts through free inquiry and the open exchange of
ideas. As a teaching and learning community, the College holds that knowledge
is a good to be pursued both for its own sake and for the intellectual, moral,
and physical well-being of individuals and of society at large. The College
exists to provide a lively academic community of students and teachers of high
scholarly qualifications from diverse social and cultural circumstances. The
College aims to graduate women and men who can think clearly, who can speak and
write persuasively and even eloquently, who can evaluate critically both their
own and others' ideas, who can acquire new knowledge, and who are prepared in
life and work to use their knowledge and their abilities to serve the common
good.
A Grinnell Education:
At the
center of a Grinnell education is intensive mentoring of students by the
faculty. This mentoring begins in the First-Year Tutorial, the only required
course at Grinnell College. While faculty members from all academic departments
teach the tutorial and their topics vary widely, every tutorial emphasizes
writing, critical thinking and analysis, oral discussion skills, and
information literacy. Each tutor also serves as adviser to this group of
students until they declare a major field of study. Thus, students receive
guidance from an instructor with personal knowledge of their academic
interests, aptitudes, and needs. The tutorial is usually limited to 12
students, making it somewhat smaller than the average class, though similar in
intensity to the rest of the curriculum. Grinnell classes generally are small,
with an average enrollment of 16 and fewer than 9 percent of classes above 30
students. Many academic programs offer a Mentored Advanced Project (MAP),
either as independent study or in the context of a seminar. The MAP, closely
guided by a faculty director, gives upper-level students the opportunity to
culminate a sequence of academic work by completing a highly advanced project
in research or creative arts.
At all levels of the curriculum, Grinnell College students receive an education
rooted in active experience. For example, students in science classes engage in
discovery-based learning, even at the introductory level. Each area of the fine
arts offers opportunities for creative practice alongside the study of history,
theory, and formal analysis. Outside the classroom, the Career Development
Office has coordinated more than 400 College-funded summer internships for
students over the past five years. About a third of students participate in
intercollegiate athletics through membership on varsity teams. Residence life,
another important feature of a Grinnell education, teaches students the
pragmatic social skills of self-governance as they live together in community.
The College offers a
Grinnell's emphasis on active learning extends to participation in the global
community. With international students making up more than 10 percent of the
student body and domestic students representing every state, Grinnell offers a
geographically and culturally diverse environment for living and learning. A
flourishing Center for International Studies coordinates and highlights the
many courses and programs at Grinnell College with a global perspective. Even
without a language requirement, nearly all students elect to study a foreign
language. More than half of Grinnell students (a number matched by very few
other colleges) spend a semester in Off-Campus Study. Nearly all of these
students decide to live and study in an academic program outside of the United
States.
Above all, Grinnell College entrusts students with an uncommon level of
responsibility for their own college experience. Just as self-governance is
central to residential life at the College, the freedom of each student to
choose a unique set of courses is central to the way Grinnell organizes its
curriculum. Students exercise this responsibility not in isolation, but with
the active guidance of their faculty advisers and other faculty mentors.
Requirements:
First-Year
Tutorial
Topic-driven, emphasizing writing, critical thinking, oral
discussion skills,
information literacy
No
distribution requirements
128 credits
to graduate