About Us

Who are we?

We are a coalition of Grinnell College students at large, organizing to reclaim our institution in the name of its unmet commitment to social responsibility and justice. Now more than ever, these values are in danger. As we hope this site will help document, the Board of Trustees and the Administration have generally failed to act in a manner that is consistent with our professed values, as well as a very real threat that the College will cut programs essential to these commitments in the name of economic caution in the near future (see FAQ Question #4). Broadly, what we seek is a reorientation of the college towards social responsibility and social justice. These principles have ceased to inform the actions of the Board and the Administration in many areas, and what we demand is that the College take concrete steps immediately to amend that discrepancy.

We have submitted a set of demands to the Board of Trustees and Administrators, and expect a response by March 30th 2009. If none is received, or the response is unsatisfactory, we will escalate our activities accordingly.

Seeing the pattern

Our demands are by no means an exhaustive list of prescriptions to make Grinnell a socially responsible or just institution. Rather they are drawn from a wide range of projects and proposals that have not been carried out by Trustees and Administrators. Additionally they include urgent matters that can be addressed with relatively little effort.

We hope that in weaving together these demands into a single project, we will help students, faculty, administrators, alumni, and the public to see the pattern that emerges when these issues are considered together. The linkages between these issues – diversity, socially responsible investing, the environment and responsibility, comunication and transparency, peer education, hate crimes response policy, social commitment and community service, student mental health, staff firing and hiring procedures, religion and spirituality, conflict resolution – are strong. Furthermore the failure of the Trustees and Administrators to act on one issue cannot be considered separately from their failure to act on another. While limited progress on any of our individual demands might be understandable by itself, the lack of movement on ALL of these issues can only testify to systemic lack of concern for social responsibility and justice.

Student activism

As a result of the challenges that student activists have faced in pushing their agenda through on all of these issues, Grinnell College students have been left feeling that they do not have the power within the institution. Strangely, our “culture of yes” has contributed to this problem. Grinnell Administrators rarely say “no” directly; instead, they say “yes” in principle, and then do not follow through with substantive changes (see Resources page for details). This makes it exceedingly difficult to organize effective campaigns around issues of social justice.

Consequently, the No Limits Project represents a synthesis of new and old student activist traditions. In a sense, this project signals a return to an older model of activism at Grinnell – we are angry and we will make our voices heard! However, we also represent a novel coalition between students who have traditionally worked in small groups on compartmentalized projects. In contrast, we recognize that piecemeal progress is a tactic deployed to divide and delay; our purpose is to secure commitments to ALL of our demands!

“No Limits?”

So what about the name? If you aren’t on campus now or receiving mail from the Office of Admissions, you might not know that over the past two years, a new slogan has been phased in – “No Limits”. On recruiting materials, Grinnell College is cast as “a road to a place of endless possibilities”.

While the obvious errors in these statements have been amply documented elsewhere (a particularly good list can be found on the wall in Bob’s Underground Cafe), we want to be clear: Grinnell has limits, especially when it comes to its commitments to social responsibility and justice. We cordially invite you to join us in our effort to push them.