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name = Grinnell College | image = | motto = | established = 1846 | type = Private | affiliations = formerly Congregationalist | president = Russell K. Osgood | city = Grinnell |state = Iowa |country = USA |students = 1500 | faculty = 156 full-time, 43 part-time | endowment = $1.4 billion (Sept '05)| campus = Rural , 120 acres (486,000 m²) | nickname = Pioneers | colors = Scarlet and Black| website = www.grinnell.edu }} Grinnell College is a Liberal Arts College in Grinnell , Iowa , U.S. . It was founded on June 10 , 1846 , when a group of transplanted New England Congregationalist s with strong social-reformer backgrounds organized themselves as the Trustees of Iowa College. Grinnell College has been ranked in the top twenty liberal arts colleges in the United States by the magazine U.S. News & World Report in every year since the publication began ranking colleges in 1983. The college has an endowment of $1.4 billion as of 2006 , making Grinnell "the wealthiest liberal-arts college in the country" according to The Chronicle of Higher Education {Link without Title} . Russell K. Osgood is the current president of Grinnell College. History Grinnell 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 difficulties with residents in Davenport forced the college to relocate. 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. Grinnell was from its inception a progressive institution. It was the first college west of the Mississippi River to grant a bachelor's degree and among the first to admit women and African-Americans to its course of study. Grinnell served as a stop along the Underground Railway and John Brown stopped in Grinnell prior to his raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia , in 1859 . In 1882, the campus was destroyed by a Tornado , or as such phenomena were referred to in those days, a Cyclone . However, rebuilding began immediately and the student yearbook is today known as The Cyclone. In the 20th century, Grinnell maintained its reputation for social action. The College was a center of the Social Gospel reform movement and Grinnell graduates included numerous prominent members of the New Deal Administration. The later parts of the 1960s saw campus unrest and commencement was cancelled in 1970 after the shootings of student protesters at Kent State and Jackson State University . Campus Grinnell College is located in the town of . An active railroad divides the campus. Numerous building projects have been undertaken in recent years including a new athletics center, a performing arts center designed by César Pelli , a renovation of the science building, and the Joe Rosenfield Center (scheduled for completion in 2006). Academics Grinnell is one of the few colleges in the United States with an "open curriculum," meaning that students are free from general requirements, with the exception of a writing-intensive "tutorial" during their 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 graduates go on to earn Ph.D. 's and Grinnell students have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships , Watson Fellowships , and Fulbright Scholarships . Recent data place Grinnell at 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. Grinnell has been ranked in the top twenty liberal arts colleges by U.S. News & World Report ever since the publication has ranked colleges; in 2005 , Grinnell was ranked fifteenth. Also, Grinnell is one of twenty-five liberal arts colleges that ''U.S. News'' has labeled "Most Selective." The Wall Street Journal included Grinnell in their 2003 list of the "Top 50 Feeder Schools," which recognizes the fifty American undergraduate institutions that send the highest proportion of their alumni to the top business schools, law schools, and medical schools in the United States. Grinnell's rigorous academics are known for the immense amount of pressure they place upon students. Many expressions of this stress can be seen on campus, including grafitti in the library's basement restrooms, the Secrets page on GrinnellPlans , and this song , written and performed by Matt Belknap '01. 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 Fall 2005 - Spring 2006 totalled $34,814. Tuition and fees alone were $27,504. 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 2004, 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. There has been much speculation as to why ESPN 2 would come to such a small liberal arts college; however, the official reason is due to Grinnell'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" has received criticism as "bastardizing" the game and not teaching the principles of defense or the short shot. However, under "The System," Grinnell has won numerous championships over the last 5 years, as well as broken numerous NCAA individual and team scoring records. Social Activities and Organizations The Scarlet And Black is the campus newspaper and KDIC broadcasts college radio. 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 . There are also a number of student groups on campus. These include everything from video game clubs to an active Belly Dancing group to a Family Guy appreciation group. In addition, there are a number of musical groups on campus, including the all-male a cappella group, the G-Tones . 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 is one of several liberal arts colleges that have an active campus-wide Blogosphere 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
GrinnellPlans virtual community GrinnellPlans is a Virtual Community consisting of 2,840 members as of February 2006 ( source ). Most members are current students or alumni, but faculty, staff members, and (by invitation) other friends of the College have also joined. External links
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