Creating Paths After Grinnell

by Daniel Kisslinger ’14

It can be an overwhelming prospect, facing the real-world after Commencement. Some 30 alumni around the country shared their tales of transition, tales that vary widely. But there are common points — they tapped into a support network of other Grinnellians; they built upon the foundation of self-confidence they acquired at Grinnell; and they took advantage of viewpoints and skills they developed as liberal arts students.

It’s the Grinnell Wide Web

Rebecca Quirk ’86 followed her mother’s advice and moved to Washington, D.C., after graduation. “That first month was all terrifying. Fortunately, I found another Grinnellian on Capitol Hill, Paula Nixon ’84, who helped me get situated and gave me a base as I got on my feet. She’s still a very dear friend to this day.” 

Rob Zyskowski ’10 found similar support when he moved to Boston after graduation with his friend Thomas Bateman ’10. “Pretty much immediately, I was surrounded by Grinnellians whom I hadn’t known as a student, and I instantly had a connection with them. There were four or five Grinnellians, all living within a block of each other in South Boston. It really didn’t take very many people to feel like a mini-Grinnell community, all because of the people who were there,” Zyskowski says.

However strong these communities are initially, sometimes these networks fade. When Sam Raife ’10 moved to Albuquerque, N.M., he found a small but strong community of fellow young alumni that became his circle of friends for the first couple years he was in town. However, as the individual members of the group came to different professional and social crossroads, the tight-knit community began to dissipate. “I’ve found myself having to look other places for community,” Raife says.

Building Self-Confidence

Eric Gautschi ’94 found that “there’s something to the confidence that you have coming out of Grinnell, where you feel like you can do anything. For me, that was the perfect preparation for an entrepreneurial career path.” He calls this confidence a form of naiveté that was helpful when he approached a possibility and thought, “Why not?”

Yet Grinnell has not necessarily instilled this confidence in every student. Meg Madden ’64 attended Grinnell at a time when the institution wasn’t as adept at helping all students find their voices. The conventions of the time, from the arrangement of students in the classroom to the locking of the women’s South Campus dorms at night, “were coded to put women in a supportive role, second to men,” Madden says. “These conventions were just as constricting for faculty and the administration as they were to the students.”

She turned to the campus’ counter-culture, which burgeoned dramatically her junior year. When she considers this decision now, Madden recognizes she didn’t have the maturity to use the many resources the College offered. The institution, she muses, prepared her for the realities of institutionalized sexism that she encountered postgraduation, a training that she says “isn’t what college should be about.” Yet, simultaneously, her personal community at Grinnell helped her develop managerial and creative skills, which ultimately became central to her career. It also provided her with lifelong friends who share some of her complex feelings about their alma mater.

When Troy Dougherty ’00 began at Grinnell, he was excited to start finding his voice in the classroom and as a leader on the football field. Yet he knew that after only one year he would be stepping away to serve a mission in the Dominican Republic for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “I was looking forward to interacting with the Dominican people and teaching the values of the gospel. Still, I also knew I was leaving behind some good friends and good teammates, who would be seniors when I returned as a sophomore. That particular transition was, up to that point, the most significant transition in my life.”

When he returned, the College transferred the financial support for his on-campus housing to an off-campus house so that he could live with his new wife and their young baby. The College’s flexibility and support allowed Dougherty to step back into a leadership position on the football team and achieve success in the classroom.

Darcie Rives-East ’96 found her confidence in a different way. “I knew that I wanted to be an English professor,” she says, “but I left Grinnell in a sort of weakened state. I wasn’t sure if I was good enough to do what I wanted to do.” Frank conversations with some of her professors and the rigor of her academic work in her senior year led her to second-guess her own ability. “I took a critical theory course and just didn’t get it at all,” she recalls. “It wasn’t until a year later, when I was learning the theory in a graduate program, that it all clicked. Sometimes you’re not ready, but you can’t see that in the moment.” In hindsight, this process of discovery gives her perspective on the fickle nature of learning: “Sometimes, it’s just not the time to understand. There’s no one time to learn.” Rives-East is now an English professor at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D. 

Tapping the Broader Perspective

Scott Shepherd ’82 found that employers and colleagues at ONE Gas, a Tulsa, Okla., natural gas and energy company where he found work after graduation, didn’t really understand exactly what his Grinnell liberal arts education had given him. He ultimately just demonstrated these skills through his actions every day. “I feel like thinking differently, being creative, having a broader perspective than the engineer who only studied engineering, ended up being really helpful for me. I work with a lot of accountants and engineers. I think differently than they do. I apply my education every day on the job.” By employing these skills, Shepherd has climbed the power structure of a company that may not have initially been looking for a “liberal arts perspective.”

This set of skills is especially helpful for Grinnellians with a strong commitment to social activism. “I left Grinnell wanting to win every battle, wanting to shake people up and find a way to increase tolerance,” says Laura McDermith Neish Winslow ’83. “At Grinnell I also learned that it wasn’t comfortable to be at the receiving end of someone who is dogmatic, or someone who is trying to push his or her opinions on me, so I knew when I left Grinnell that I wasn’t going to do it that way. Now that I’m older, I pick my battles, and have my portable soapboxes, and I know when to use them.”

Some alumni have been able to create their soapbox moments for social change through professional accomplishments. Coming to Grinnell from India, Rishi Misra ’01 knew that he wanted to pursue one of two passions: building warships or creating new solutions in the world of health care. Once he learned that his status as an immigrant would prevent him from working in military engineering, he began to carve out opportunities in health care, ultimately becoming a successful innovator and entrepreneur in San Francisco.

In this journey, he battled institutional barriers because of his immigrant status. Several years ago he was only a week away from being deported when the necessary paperwork finally went through. Now that he is professionally and culturally established, he says, “I’ve been in this country for 17 years, and it’s my home now. What can I do to make it a better place?” This question informs his professional work in the health care realm and also has led him to advocate for immigration reform. He shares his story in an effort to change the current system, which often forces highly educated young people to leave the country once their student visas have expired.

A Sacred Space

“Whether we are religious or not,” says Don Lewis-Kraitsik ’69 in his hilltop desert garden in Gallup, N.M., “we have certain places in our lives that are sacred spaces. These spaces contain the possibility of reflection and growth. Just as importantly, these spaces are difficult to reach. These are the spaces we hold close to our hearts.”

For many alumni, Grinnell is that sacred place.  It stays with them after they leave, helping them with transition and growth in their personal and professional lives. It becomes a foundation for their futures.

The Interactive Map

Explore his 6,600-mile journey and hear audio of the alumni interviews on the Intersections Interactive map.