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| Grinnell students, from left, Robert Logan, Eva Smith, and Tyler Smiley make cranberry muffins on Wednesday at Grinnell College in Grinnell. The students on campus practice 'self-governance' when planning and policing campus activities. / Bryon Houlgrave/The Register |
Grinnell College has a unique and proud system of authority on-campus call "self-governance". This facet of the College was the focus of a feature story from Sunday's Des Moines Register:
It’s called self-governance. Grinnell College students live by its tenets, or try to, and officials there claim the college is one of a handful to attempt the philosophy that it has promoted since its earliest days.
Self-governance is a fuzzy concept, but the basic idea is that students can govern themselves without the heavy hand of authority lording over them and putting the hammer down. Part of that freedom is a responsibility to others in the community — for example, owning up and paying for the broken water fountain so others can use it.
