On Dec. 5, 2022, the College announced that the newest residence hall would be named for Edith Renfrow Smith ’37, the first Black female graduate of Grinnell College and the oldest living alumna.
Learn more about Edith Renfrow Smith’s life and legacy:
All Things Grinnell Podcast Episode
Good afternoon everyone. I’m Anne Harris, and I have the honor of serving as the 14th president of Grinnell College. Thank you so much for being here today online and in person for this very special announcement. There are many thank-yous to extend. I want to start with thanking Raynard Kington, President Kington, who began the process which has now resulted in the Civic Engagement Quad [Ed: a working name for the construction project that includes the hall] in the summer of 2019. I’d like to thank the Board of Trustees for their support through all the years of planning. I want to thank the senior leadership team of Grinnell College, with whom I have the honor of working, again, throughout the years. Then over the past several weeks and months, I really want to thank Ellen de Graffenreid, the vice president of communication, Myrna Hernandez, chief of staff and VP of administration, and all of their campus partners and there are many. Jaci Thiede as well, VP of alumni relations. A very special thank you to Professor Tamara Beauboeuf.
I’m just going to take our time together in this very incredible moment to Feven Getachew, to Monique Shore, and to Dan Kaiser. You will understand... Yes. You will understand in this very wonderful time that we have together, why I would want to pause on their names. They move mountains. It is a great day for Grinnell, the college and the town, as we honor the life and legacy of one of our most accomplished and beloved alumni by naming the Civic Engagement Quad Core building after Edith Renfrow Smith, class of 1937 and publicly proclaimed. Publicly proclaimed to her and the world via livestream and beyond the dedication of Renfrow Hall in her honor. I love y’all because my script says, “Pause for applause,” but you did that already.
The process to name Renfrow Hall began in the summer of 2022 and involved waiting until the building had received final approval from the Board of Trustees at its September meeting, as well as ensuring that Mrs. Renfrow Smith had the opportunity to formally accept this honor. We are here today to share this moment with her and some of her family, friends, and neighbors in beautiful Chicago. This is the one time I am so glad for the marvels of modern technology, it’s really finally for good. We are united in honoring Mrs. Renfrow Smith with the city of Grinnell whose schools inducted her into their Alumni Hall of Fame just this past Friday. We now want to share with all of you and those watching online just a small part of her extraordinary life story.
In the summer of 2022, a team of dedicated college and community members reached out to me with an idea. Over the course of the following weeks, the steadfast practice of the person this idea sought to honor, of not refusing to see the shortcomings, but refusing to give them the power to change her love of Grinnell College sustained the conversations, planning, and visits needed to make it a reality. That is what happened on October 1st, 2022 when the trustees of Grinnell College approved and endorsed naming the Civic Engagement Quad Core building for a true Grinnellian, a visionary and a guide to generations, and the first Black alumna of Grinnell College, Edith Renfrow Smith, class of [19]37.
She made a path for someone like me, I mean, I can’t help but get emotional. Because of Edith Renfrow Smith, I can be on this campus in a different way.
I think that the lesson from her is that when you see and believe the best of others, they live up to it more often than not.
If she sees me as someone who’s special, that means that I have potential to be someone great, to affect people’s lives, at least in a little bit, the way she did.
More and more, it’s hard for me to think about Grinnell College without thinking about Mrs. Edith Renfrow Smith. All the research that we’ve done has uncovered not just the fact of her longevity, that she was born in 1914, and that she’s a proud Grinnellian, but that her family and her extended family have deep roots in this county.
We’ve just found this incredibly rich history of her family. Literally, her grandfather’s account of coming to this area when he escaped slavery was he arrived in Grinnell with John Brown in 1859, very possibly the same trip when John Brown met with J.B. Grinnell. That is as deep as you can go.
When I think of Edith Renfrow Smith, I think of somebody who is quintessentially of Grinnell. I mean, born in the town of Grinnell. Spent all of her school years in the local buildings, many of which still exist. Who went to college here. Who came back for reunions. Who still says this is home.
When we talked to her about why she wanted to go to Grinnell, it was the student interactions that she really said were key. Students that she met when she was a little kid filled her with encouragement and a belief in herself that she says from as young as she can remember, she wanted to go to Grinnell.
What is exceptional about her, and she always says this in the interviews that she gives, is her mother was a person who told her children every day, “No one is better than you, that you are special, that there is something that you are meant to do in the world.” To me, this is what is at the heart of her success and her family’s success is to have this woman who firmly believed in her children and equipped her children to push back against all of the negative images that they would encounter as Black children in a white community.
What was it like for her to be in this predominantly white institution alone, to be the first Black student? How do you position her optimism, her love? For her to say, “Grinnell is home,” but how can a place be home when it’s mostly actively resisting against you? Her positivity and her psychological preparation for it and her mom continuously telling her, reinforcing this idea that she’s special and she doesn’t need any outside force to tell her that, she doesn’t need any validation.
I talk about Sixth Avenue as the dividing line between the town and the college, that’s never been true for her. She walked it, she crossed it. I would hope that we would always want to do things in the spirit of Edith Renfrow Smith, to lead with kindness, to lead with self-respect, to lead with a sense that you can be a part of a small town and still make a -big impact. Because what happens here is part of what happens in the world at large.
She’s opened my eyes in a lot of ways, really spending time thinking about the experiences that she had and how a fierce attitude of grace and positivity...
Whatever time we have on this campus or in this town, there’s something bigger that we belong to. When we talk about wanting to see Grinnell in its fullness, we have to follow the example of someone like Edith Renfrow Smith, for whom there have never been two Grinnells.
This is a woman who has done so much good in her life and has never asked for recognition, in some ways, has very humbly refused recognition because the things that she has done, she has done from a sense of an altruistic being, that she wants to make the world a better place. I think that’s what all Grinnellians strive for.
I think a true Grinnellian connects with others regardless of any barriers and sees everyone as equal and as a potential to make everything better.
In 2019, Grinnell College awarded Mrs. Edith Renfrow Smith, a Doctorate of Humane Letters, honoris causa, to a standing ovation from the graduates and all assembled. At that time, she said...
Grinnell has been my life.
Across her extraordinary life, she has put the lessons she learned growing up in Grinnell and the education that she received at Grinnell College to work for the common good. We have much to learn from her steadfastness and perseverance, her excellence, and her belief that we can do better. May this dedication, in every sense of the word, enduringly honor all that she has taught so many over generations. It is deeply meaningful and fitting that this building, focused on students, their residential and learning experiences, and situated at the intersection of the town and the college will bear her name.
It’s very hard. Good afternoon, I am Feven Getachew, class of 2024. When I first decided to study abroad, I was hoping to find a place that, to some extent, that I could call home away from home. Before coming to Grinnell, I had the opportunity to meet with and talk to Dr. Gregg-Jolly, Fitsum Getahun, Jon Edwards. How I got to know each of these people is a long story, but they were some of the few people that allowed me to see a glimpse of Grinnell and to be excited to come. Yet still, I wasn’t sure if it would be a home away from home. In the summer of 2021, I researched the undergraduate experience of Edith Renfrow Smith, class of 1937, with Dr. Tamara Beauboeuf. During this research, I interviewed Mrs. Smith twice. I was captivated by her extraordinary optimism and endless love that Mrs. Smith preached to Grinnell despite the adversities that she endured.
She grew up not being allowed to buy ice cream from the town’s Candyland. Her mother never allowed her to go to the movies, for the only seats available for her were the buzzard roosts, designated balconies for Black people. Even her brother was forced to leave Grinnell at a very young age because a townsmember treated him like a janitor. In fact, all her siblings left Grinnell at a very young age, except her. Nonetheless, she says Grinnell was home and is home. She praises Grinnell, both the college and the town. I was asking myself, “Why does Mrs. Smith call Grinnell home? What is special about Grinnell?” I realized that I first needed to define what home really means. My imagination of home quickly was... Before this was a perfect place with no complications. I quickly learned that home is not a perfect place, but it has special people who accept you with no prerequisites and cheer you and love you unconditionally.
To make a place one’s home requires a certain effort and dedication. It requires a certain level of faith in not just what is now, but what is yet to be with a collective effort. For Mrs. Smith, Grinnell was home because of the affirmations that she received. She recalls still today how her mother, her friend, and supportive faculty member that made her feel special and seen. For me, Grinnell is home away from home because of Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith is empowering for many reasons. She’s compassionate, she’s optimistic, she’s sincere, she’s civic-minded, and helpful. It has been an honor to visit her, hold her hands, hear her childhood stories, eat the delicious vegan desserts that she makes for me, just for me. Naming the Civic Engagement Quad after her honor allows students to learn about Mrs. Smith and aspire to continue her legacy at Grinnell and beyond.
Moreover, it allows students to build their homes together with Mrs. Smith’s spirit. I believe it’s necessary for every Grinnellian who walks into this wonderful place to know Mrs. Smith’s story, for she’s the true Grinnellian. The Civic Engagement Quad is one of the many ways that we begin to do this. Now, it’s my privilege to ask Mrs. Smith and her family to say a few words.
Mom, would you like to say a few words?
You want to take your mask off?
Mom, pull your mask down so they can understand.
Oh, I’m sorry. You don’t know how much it means to somebody who reaches over 100 to know that your life has not been in vain. I want to thank all the people who have worked so diligently to make this special for not only me, for all the people who will come after me. But, that’s the important thing, that they’ll know about a person who started small and came out big.
Oh, I won’t talk much. I’m just so honored to have a mother that’s like this. She’s the most special thing in the world.
Okay, what’s going on?
This is what love feels like.
When the College decided to create the Civic Engagement Quad and saw the brilliant design by Adjaye Associates, and I hope some are watching and can really feel our appreciation to Sir David Adjaye and his team for this design. It was clear that this extraordinary space would create new conditions of possibility for this college and this community. By creating shared experiences, the CEQ will welcome college and community members and invite dialogue, exchange, and collaborative brainstorming into collective spaces while also meeting the demand for off-campus student housing in separate apartment-style residences. There’s a lot going on in this building. Through this project and the concerted and continuing efforts of all, both the city and the college of Grinnell can become a national voice for civic engagement and community collaboration in a rural setting. This endeavor requires determination and optimism. It requires a commitment to civic trust. It requires a bit of risk-taking.
As we thought about Grinnellians whose lives and accomplishments embody these values and who have served as a positive and undaunted inspiration to others, it quickly became clear that Mrs. Edith Renfrow Smith was that alumna. As Renfrow Hall, I just love to say it... As Renfrow Hall will reside in a space that connects the city of Grinnell and the college of Grinnell, it will do so carrying the name of the truest of true Grinnellians. Today we named the Core building in her honor, and there will be other signature spaces in the Civic Engagement Quad that will be named with similar care. Mrs. Renfrow Smith’s love of the city and the college is unparalleled. It is not a love that is blind to the problems that existed when she was a high school and college student in Grinnell and that continue today.
Her love of this place accepts that it is not perfect, that it is far from perfect, that she as the College’s first Black alumna and painfully our current students have experienced racism and discrimination, that we continue to work to live up to our own ideals. Nevertheless, really pause on that word, nevertheless, she loves this place with a clear-eyed acceptance of its shortcomings and its potential. Our community and our sense of community have been challenged this fall with racism and racist harassment on our campus and in our city. We cannot let hate and ignorance keep us from celebrating Mrs. Renfrow Smith, from learning from her life, and from holding ourselves to her higher standard to what she believes we can be. We have members of what we call Team Edith here today wearing some very special T-shirts. Let’s see, here we go. We have saved a few for those members of Team Edith who joined us today from Chicago.
On those shirts, you will see a quote from Mrs. Renfrow Smith that she attributes to her mother, Eva Pearl Craig Renfrow. It reads, “There is no one better than you. You are unique and you are you, so never forget how important you are.” Let us all, constituents of the college, citizens of Grinnell, Iowa, from past, present, and future generations be accountable to safeguard her legacy and to honor her through how we live in community. Thank you.
There is one more message we’re eager for you to hear, and then we will have our chance to interact with Mrs. Renfrow Smith again. Now we will hear from Michael Kahn, Chair of the Grinnell College Board of Trustees.
Thank you, President Harris, for inviting me to be part of today’s announcement. I wish I could be there with you in person. It is a distinct honor to represent the Board of Trustees for our official designation of the Civic Engagement Quad Core building as Renfrow Hall. As President Harris noted, the announcement of this idea received immediate and unanimous approval from the Board of Trustees. Edith Renfrow Smith is the College’s oldest living alumna, but as you have heard today, she’s also a visionary and a guide, an enduring presence in the history of the city of Grinnell and the college. She received a Grinnell College degree with a double major in economics and psychology. She’s a true Grinnellian, and Grinnellians go forth. Throughout her life, Mrs. Renfrow Smith has gone forth believing in and contributing to the greater good.
On behalf of the trustees of Grinnell College, it’s my privilege to convey our enthusiastic approval and endorsement of the naming of the Civic Engagement Quad Core building as Renfrow Hall in her honor. Dear Mrs. Renfrow Smith, thank you for the enduring impact you have had on our town and our college. I send you my warmest congratulations on this wonderful recognition.
We’re going to take our time. Beautiful. Okay, so there are macaroons from Chef Scott and his team in the back awaiting us. I know we want to be in fellowship together, but we have one more opportunity to hold this moment. It’s an incredibly precious moment. As we go forth today with the joyous knowledge that Renfrow Hall is so suitably named, please, everyone in the audience here in Grinnell turn to the back of the room where the camera’s located and wave to Mrs. Renfrow Smith, her friends, and her family. We will say goodbye just for now, but thank you forever.
Mrs. Renfrow Smith, we love you. We love you so, so very much. I don’t want to let this moment go, but I know that you’re seeing us and hopefully feeling our love for you in this time. I just look forward to when we see each other in person again, when we walk the halls of the beautiful building named after you together and we continue to live in your light and to honor your legacy. Grinnell College, Grinnell town love you. We love you.
We’ve said it all. We've said it all. But, a thank you, thank you, thank you.
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