Tutorials

In the tutorial every entering student explores a topic of interest to the student and the instructor in a small group, discussion-intensive setting. The objectives of the tutorial are to illuminate methods of inquiry rather than to cover topics comprehensively, focusing particularly on writing, critical reading and oral communication. In addition, the tutorial initiates the process of planning for a liberal education at Grinnell through advising conversations between students and their instructors. By promoting close working relationships between tutorial instructors and their students and by combining the roles of instructor and academic adviser, the College provides students with academic advisers attuned to the interests and abilities of their advisees.

A tutorial (4 credits) is required of all students who enter Grinnell as first-year students and of all transfer students below third-year student standing whose previous work does not qualify them for an exemption. A student must complete the tutorial with a grade of C or higher to meet the tutorial graduation requirement and to be eligible to enroll in a “Plus-2” or independent project. Students who receive a D or F in the tutorial must earn a grade of C or better in a course designated or approved by the dean’s office as Intensive Writing (IW).

The following tutorials are offered in 2021–22: 

• Comrades in the Kitchen: Russian and Soviet Food and Culture in the Soviet Century (Armstrong)
• Mindfulness: The Art of Living (Y. Chen)
• Immortality (Dixon)
• Contagion (Eikmeier)
• Our Habits, Ourselves (Elfenbein)
• I/Robot: The Social Life of Machines (and Humans) (Erickson)
• The Ethics of Eating (Fennell)
• Journeys: Life is a Road Trip (Freeman)
• The Ring of the Nibelung (Gaub)
• Racecraft (Gibel Mevorach)
• Cli-Fi: Reckoning with Climate Change Through Fiction (A. Graham)
• Automation (B. Graham)
• What Make You You? (Gregg-Jolly)
• Measuring the World (Guenther)
• Self and Social Change (Haenfler)
• Zoopolis (Jakubiak)
• Black Women and Neo-Soul (Johnson)
• Sitcoms (Lavan)
• The Inequality of Democracy in Modern America (Lussier)
• The Pre-History of the Selfie (Mackenzie)
• Alien Anthropology: Where Social Science and Science Fiction Intersect (Marshack)
• Sound Stories: The World of Film Music (McIntyre)
• Conceptual Models: from Science to Science Fiction (Mobley)
• Coping with Climate Change: How Science, Politics and Ethics Interact (Moyer)
• Escapism (Prevost)
• The Art of Protest (Quintero)
• Sigmund Freud, Cultural Critic (Reynolds)
• Flat Earth, Ancient Aliens, and Science Denial (Rodriguez)
• Slaying Dragons, Depicting Saints: The Legacy of Saint George (Saba)
• The Difference that Disability Makes (Savarese)
• Love, Loss and Enlightenment: Reading the Dream of the Red Chamber (Tang)
• Video and Virtual Reality (Tavares)
• The Art of Memory (Garrison)
• Stuff (Maynard)