A Passion for Learning Drives Grinnell’s New Dean, Ruth Feingold

After her interview for the position of dean at Grinnell College, Ruth Feingold found herself with a few hours to fill. She used her time to explore the campus on her own, poking into buildings and people-watching.

In the Humanities and Social Studies Center (HSSC), she treated herself to a coffee from the Global Café and then began to check out the space, starting in the atrium. A nearby alcove filled with ornate, old-fashioned mailboxes caught her attention, and she wandered in.

It was like a portal to the past. Every day for generations, Grinnell students visited these mailboxes in the College post office in Carnegie Hall. When they turned the key and swung open the little gold door, they were sometimes rewarded with a letter from home or from a faraway friend.

Today, the mailboxes have been preserved as a bit of College history that also honors donors to the 
HSSC renovation project. Opening a mailbox today reveals a donor’s story or the story of someone they wish to honor.

Feingold was charmed. “I love how interactive it is. I love the way that it tells students a story about the people for whom Grinnell has been important and the ways they want to give back,” she says.

Welcome to Grinnell

The stories behind the mailbox doors resonated with Feingold, who is quite clear about her own objectives. “I am massively mission-oriented,” she says. “I believe that education is the single best way we have of changing the world, and I think I can help with that mission. That’s really what keeps me motivated.”

President Anne F. Harris says she is honored and delighted to welcome Feingold to Grinnell College. “Grinnell College is most fortunate in Dean Feingold’s presence in our community and in her passion for our mission,” Harris says. “I am looking forward to collaborating with her as we continue to empower educational excellence and its transformative connections to the world.”

As Grinnell’s new vice president of academic affairs and dean of the College, Feingold is excited to be part of a community dedicated to higher education. She grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where her father was a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan, and her mother was a biostatistician.

“My father was a pretty important role model. He had a very strong service orientation,” Feingold says. “He really worked to take his academic skills to try and make the world a better place.”

Despite growing up in the shadow of a large university, Feingold chose a small liberal arts college, Oberlin, for her undergraduate education.

“I have always loved small schools,” she says. “I have spent a lifetime being a geeky kid who loved school. I developed, in particular, a love for small, intimate, personalized educational settings where I could explore a multitude of interests. And as I got older, I realized what that meant was the liberal arts.”

Finding Her Passion(s)

As a first-year student at Oberlin, Feingold arrived planning to take a class from every department, which turned out to be impossible. After choosing to major in psychobiology (now neuroscience), Feingold participated in a third-year study abroad program in London. There, she studied history, literature, and music history, and enjoyed immensely the chance to work with a small group of peers in an interdisciplinary context. When she arrived back at Oberlin, Feingold changed her major, first to an individually designed major in British Studies and then to English.

Feingold’s only regret was that in choosing one focus, she was closing the door on so many others that were also interesting to her. “It isn’t that, oh, I really wish I’d become a biologist. It’s oh, I wish I could be a biologist and a literary critic and an artist and be superb at all of them, which of course, you can’t,” she says.

Feingold graduated from Oberlin with a major in English and a minor in history. She chose the University of Chicago for her graduate studies, where she earned master’s and doctoral degrees in English language and literature.

Feingold developed scholarly interests in postcolonial and contemporary British literature; her work in this area has gained widespread respect from her peers. Feingold’s wide-ranging interests, including the interconnections of space, place, and gender in the context of empire and its aftermath, have shaped her research and teaching; she nurtures a particular interest in children’s literature and the literature of travel.

A Shining Exemplar

Feingold comes to Grinnell from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, where she served as dean. She’s delighted with her new position at Grinnell College, which she calls “a shining exemplar of the kind of work that can be done.” Feingold loves how Grinnell fosters an interest in learning for its own sake, and she appreciates the people who are drawn to study and work at institutions like Grinnell.

As dean, Feingold says her first responsibility is to the students and making sure they get the education they come here for. “That is a group enterprise. We are all engaged in that,” she says.

To spend more time with students, Feingold will teach the First-Year Experience class in spring 2026. This six-session, half-credit course helps first-year students develop skills to support their success at Grinnell and beyond. She’s hoping to teach other classes in the future as well. “I do think the best way to get to know something about the students who are my clients, if you will, as well as my faculty colleagues, is to be in the classroom,” she says.

Feingold also feels responsible to the faculty and staff. She is aware that the decisions she makes and the policies she enacts affect the daily lives of people across campus.

“I have a lot of power for good and for ill to make things work well, and I take that seriously,” Feingold says.

Finally, Feingold feels a strong sense of accountability to the institution and the Grinnellians who are here now, those who have been here in the past, and those who will be here in the future.

Making Positive Change

Feingold says that she particularly enjoys finding community with others who share her desire to contribute to the common good. She’s discovered that many alumni want to make that kind of difference and have a vision for how higher education can help do that. “I love meeting with people who love the institution, who care about education, who care about students.”

She adds, “What’s really fun is talking to them, learning about their lives, learning about the difference that the College has made in their lives and what they’ve done since, and what they care about.”

And sometimes, she adds, it’s possible to translate those passions into volunteer engagement or gifts supporting programs and resources on campus for today’s students.

“It’s giving people the opportunity to give back in a way that is really meaningful to them,” Feingold says. “Who doesn’t want to be able to make a positive change in the world?”

Books, Dogs, and Walking

Feingold and her partner, Jeff, can often be seen walking their two dogs, Pingo and Kiwi, on campus. Feingold knows that many students miss their own pets at home, and her dogs are happy to provide a little pet therapy to anyone who needs it.

Walking is Feingold’s preferred method of transportation and recreation, and she recently completed a walking tour of Wales. She and a friend covered 10 to 12 miles a day over rough terrain, gaining about 3,000 feet in elevation each day. It was much more difficult than she’d expected, but even so, Feingold says she is looking forward to the next tour — location yet to be determined.

Not surprisingly for an English major, Feingold is an avid reader. Although work keeps her busy, Feingold always makes time to read for pleasure. She made a vow to set aside time to read after her first year as an assistant professor. She was teaching three classes each semester and found herself busier than she had ever been before.

“I got to the end of the year and realized that I had not read a single book all year except the ones I was teaching,” Feingold says. “I was starved for pleasure reading. I read a book a day for two weeks and decided that I was never going to do that to myself again.”

A Future of Good Partnerships

Feingold has assumed the role of dean at Grinnell College with dedication, enthusiasm, and a deep sense of purpose. “Education is my own particular mission, the way I want to contribute to making the world a better place,” she says.