In the early 1970s, Grinnell pioneered a new model in undergraduate education. One-size-fits-all distribution requirements were replaced by an “open” (individually advised) curriculum requiring only a First-Year Tutorial. In consultation with their advisers and informed by six Elements of a Liberal Education presented in the catalog, students plan their study by choosing courses from three divisions (Humanities, Social Studies, and Science) and the interdisciplinary concentrations. The new Second-Year Retreat further invites students to engage informally with faculty and peers off campus while discussing academic choices and challenges. Because the College focuses on the advising relationship, faculty have an early and intimate understanding of their advisees, and students are made responsible for the quality of their own education, an approach that emerges from Grinnell’s historic ethos of civic and personal responsibility.

The system works. Students uniformly report high satisfaction with the advising system. Most notably, almost all of them choose a genuinely balanced and varied curriculum, frequently enrolling in double majors or combining a major with one or more concentrations. Comparative studies reveal that Grinnell students roughly equal their counterparts in peer colleges in the breadth of their studies, and significantly surpass them in depth (Reaccreditation Self-Study Report 2008, p. 47).

Faculty from all departments across the College are responsible for guiding students in the critical skills of the liberal arts: writing, oral communication, and research. In process, the courses promote inquiry-based and interactive teaching and learning, and they encourage collaboration. Faculty expertise and guidance is also available in the Library, and the Writing, Reading, and Math Labs to address individual learning needs in these important developmental areas. Eleven interdisciplinary concentrations further enable students to build coherence and advanced research into their curriculum.

With its enviable student-faculty ratio (9-to-1) and its sound financial resources, Grinnell is in a position to pioneer innovative pedagogies that realize the goal of “inquiry-based” or “experiential” learning. While such phrases may be buzzwords in the academy, at Grinnell they are a lived reality. The enthusiastic support of student learning results in a strong record of continued educational achievement. When adjusted for size, Grinnell is the most productive undergraduate source of Ph.D.s in foreign languages and literatures in the nation. Despite the absence of a foreign language requirement, almost all Grinnellians study at least one foreign language, with the Alternate Language Study Option (ALSO) offering languages not available through departments. In the social studies, Grinnell is the second most productive source of Ph.D.s in economics, third in anthropology, 11th in sociology, and 18th in history, according to the HEDS Weighted Baccalaureate Origins Study. While interdisciplinary courses have long been a part of Grinnell’s curriculum, the advent of the Expanding Knowledge Initiative (EKI) has expanded hiring in such interdisciplinary fields as geography, geology, history and theory of film, policy studies, gender and women’s and sexuality studies, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, Arabic, and Islamic studies. In addition to its own substantial investments, the College has recently received a $1 million Mellon Foundation grant for humanities and social studies and a $1.2 million HHMI grant to support EKI-related curricular initiatives involving the sciences. At a time when many institutions are forced to curtail or even eliminate programs, Grinnell is actively encouraging collaborative and innovative initiatives in all areas of intellectual inquiry.

Inquiry-based learning in the sciences draws upon the brilliantly designed facilities of the Noyce Science Center, built explicitly to facilitate a new curriculum that teaches science experientially and experimentally from the ground up. The sciences are heavily subscribed, and the graduates go on in large numbers to leading Ph.D. programs or to very fine medical schools. Adjusted for institutional size, Grinnell is the country’s sixth largest undergraduate source of Ph.D.s in chemistry, ninth in biological sciences, 11th in mathematics and psychology, and 20th in physics. As part of the institution’s commitment to diversity, the Grinnell Science Project develops the talents of all students interested in science and mathematics, especially those from groups underrepresented in the sciences: students of color, first-generation college students, and women in physics, mathematics, and computer science.

At Grinnell, the local and the global intersect in every disciplinary area, both on and off campus. This is nowhere more apparent than in Grinnell’s active encouragement and support of some form of international experience for all students regardless of disciplinary background. With at least half of all students studying off-campus, 13 percent of the 2009 entering class listed as international students, numerous undergraduate and post-graduate international fellowships and service opportunities, and faculty development study tours to Turkey, South Africa, China, and Eastern Europe, Grinnell’s adage “come to Grinnell, see the world” has never been more true.

In addition to the Expanding Knowledge Initiative, Grinnell’s Strategic Plan has devoted intensive investment and development to the Mentored Advanced Project (MAP). Formally launched in 1999 and building on the long tradition of independent study exemplified by Robert Noyce’s study of transistors with his Grinnell professor Grant Gale, the MAP concept adds depth to already existing efforts at inquiry-based learning and promotes close faculty-student collaboration. It has taken shape in a variety of ways in all disciplines across the campus, ranging from the presentation of creative projects to student travel in support of site-specific study to the publication of papers in prestigious journals. The scholar/teacher profile of Grinnell faculty often helps prepare MAP students for the kind of research they might find in graduate school or in a future academic career. In other instances, the MAP encourages students to build upon an innovative project that might lead to a future career path in business or in the arts, for example.

Grinnell supports its faculty’s ambitions for scholarship and research by providing generous support for conference and summer research travel. The scholarly interests of the faculty inform a host of distinguished programs, which enhance the regular course offerings for students. These include the Rosenfield Program in Public Affairs, International Relations, and Human Rights established in 1979, the Donald L. Wilson Program in Enterprise and Leadership, and the three recently established Centers ( Prairie Studies, Humanities, and International Studies). Each program generously supports curricular and co-curricular events, faculty scholarship, course development, visiting scholars, and symposia, and often funds student internships both domestically and abroad. Students across all disciplines report that intellectual life spills easily out of the classroom into both residential life and the College’s highly varied public spaces. This innovative approach to teaching and learning has become the hallmark of a curriculum that reaches well beyond the confines of the traditional classroom.