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 2025–26:

From Castles to Climate: Walden and the Liberal Arts (Andrews)
Food Stories (Armstrong)
Linguistic Justice (Arner)
Gender and Sexuality in Western Music (Cha)
Language Revitalization (Glewwe)
African-American Literary Ties to Russian Intellectual Thought (Greene)
Totally Bananas! (Hutchison)
Zoopolis (Jakubiak)
Black Feminisms and the Legacy of bell hooks (Johnson)
Camera as Artifact (Kaufman)
Communicating STEM (Kenkel)
Aging, Health, and Medical Ethics (Lafontant)
… divided we fall. (Lindgren)
Miss Americana and the Liberal Arts: The Taylor Swift Tutorial (Lussier)
Photography and Society (Mackenzie)
Our Environmental Responsibility (Marzluff)
Stuff (Maynard)
Songs of Achilles (Mercado)
Conceptual Models: from Science to Science Fiction (Mobley)
Can/Will the World Respond Effectively to the Climate Change Challenge? (Moyer)
Language in Thought and Action (Nolte)
College Movies (Petrus)
Birds: Nature, Joy, and Belonging (Phan)
Perspectives on the Natural World (Preperato)
Lit Fans and Fan Lits (Prevost)
Culture and Power (Purcell)
People, Art, and God on Freud’s Couch (Reynolds)
The Arc of Memory Between Remembering and History (Rios Acuña)
Lives That Change the World (Rodrigues)
Interstellar Perspectives: Science, Society, and the Universe (S. Rodriguez)
Journeys to the Edge: Travel, Monsters, and Diplomacy (Saba)
Grinnell for Newcomers (Sala)
Press Play and Taste: Korean Food Culture and Media (Seong)
Light and Our World (Thomas)
Queer African Stories (Tricoire)
The Politics of Artificial Intelligence (Trish)