Campus and Community Relations
Promoting community engagement opportunities is an important part of our office’s role at Grinnell College. An 18-hour vitality is essential to both a thriving community and a thriving campus. Whether that means bringing students to the downtown restaurants and shops or bringing the residents of Grinnell and surrounding area on to campus to enjoy and experience events and activities from a liberal arts perspective. Enriching the quality of life for all Grinnellians is part of our core mission.
Grinnell Crossroads
Grinnell Crossroads welcomes people to the community by honoring the past and providing a space of respite in the present. Located on an empty lot at the intersection of Highways 6 and 146 in Grinnell, the installation is inspired by the foundations and walls of two homes and a carriage house that originally stood on this site. The diagonal lattice walls evoke local wooden covered bridges and fences. Visitors circulate on paths that echo walkways at Grinnell College, moving through the ghost houses. Grinnell Crossroads celebrates the crossing and intersecting lives and histories that compose Grinnell.
Walter Hood is the winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant in 2019 and numerous other awards. The work routes visitors between this site and campus, inviting participants to uncover remnants of Grinnell’s past to bring them into the present. Hood combined collective exploration with archival research to create Grinnell Crossroads, activating a once-vacant lot with memory and life.
December Sales Bookstore Promotion
Grinnell College has partnered with the Pioneer Bookshop on a December sales promotion since 2013, where 10% of total December sales was directed to the Grinnell Middle School and Grinnell High School libraries. Recognizing the commitment to education and community, over $22,000 has been given to date, allowing the GHS and GMS libraries to enhance their collections and use their budget dollars for immediate needs.