Pioneer Summer Internships

Every summer, Pioneer football players disperse across the country for their exciting summer internships. Throughout the course of the summer, they will share their experiences here. Today's entry comes from defensive lineman Curtis McCoy '10:

This summer I am completing a research internship in Biology here at Grinnell College. The specific study site is the college-owned 365-acre prairie, the Conard Environmental Research Area (CERA). CERA is an amazing setting for both research and aesthetic appreciation. Purchased by the college in 1968, the area consists of remnant and restored prairie and forest, as well as a man-made pond (For More Information: http://www.grinnell.edu/academic/biology/cera/). The North Skunk River runs through a Northeast section of the prairie where a previously unstudied floodplain ecosystem is maintained. I will be examining multiple aspects of the Biogeochemistry of the floodplain and determining how human disturbance might be affecting the area. Immediately adjacent to CERA’s floodplain are multiple agricultural areas. Agriculture offers many benefits by way of food production, but it can also have multiple detrimental effects on surrounding natural ecosystems. One of the main issues involves groundwater pollution from fertilizer, specifically nitrogen, runoff. I will be installing a series of wells in the floodplain and along the river to determine the flow path of the groundwater in the floodplain. I will also be sampling the water from these wells and from the river itself to run nutrient tests for nitrate, ammonia, dissolved carbon, and phosphate. This data will give me an idea of how the agricultural areas might be affecting the floodplain groundwater as well as the quality of the river water in the North Skunk. At the conclusion of the study I will complete a paper for publish in a science journal.

Grinnell Graduates Are Finding Employment!

2009 Commencement

Even in today's tough economic world, Grinnell graduates are still landing good jobs. This story in the South Jersey Courier-Post highlights such a story.

Of the nine graduating football players, they are getting jobs in education, sales, art, research, hotel management, and finance. While a couple others have chosen to pursue graduate school immediately after receiving their diploma.

There is no doubt times are tough, but with a Grinnell degree in your hand, the possibilities are endless!

Pioneer Summer Internships

Every summer, Pioneer football players disperse across the country for their exciting summer internships. Throughout the course of the summer, they will share their experiences here. Today's entry comes from cornerback Ben Johnson '10:

I am spending the summer in Grinnell doing Neuroscience research at the college. Specifically, I am investigating never before researched connections between two brain structures, the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and the orbitofrontal cortex. Both of these structures are involved in the way the brain processes fear. Basically, my research consists of spending about 9 hours a day in the basement of the science building on campus for 10 weeks. Although having to spend a large amount of my summer cooped up in an academic building is rough, we get to do some pretty cool stuff. The basic research process is very hands on. We begin each case study by performing brain surgery on a rat. Basically, we anesthetize the rat, drill a hole in its skull, and inject a very small amount of dye into the orbitofrontal cortex of the brain. After we stitch the rat back up, we let it live for about a week. Once we have given the dye a long enough time to be projected from one area of the brain to another, we euthanize the rat and remove its brain. This a very strange process which, strangely enough, includes the use of a tiny rat guillotine. We then cut the brain into very thin slices and use some chemicals to elucidate the dye. Finally, using a microscope we examine which brain structures the dye has been projected to. So far the results have been very promising. If the data is strong enough, my results will be presented at a national neuroscience conference in Chicago this fall.

ALL IN!

The 2009 Pioneer team motto is "ALL IN!" Here is what going "All In" means to some of our current players:

Tim McDonald '10: "All In means all teammates join to collectively achieve a goal in a manner that reflects the group's brotherhood"

Robert Seer '12: "All In to me means that you are risking everything to gain everything"

Trenton Bush '12: "All In means that we, as a team, are all in this together, that we give our full efforts, and that we succeed and fail as a unit"

Ryan Creps '12: "All In means never quitting on your team"

Jake McVeigh '11: "All In is to me no regrets. At the end of the day there is nothing more anyone can do"

John Hereford '10: "All In means that each player does whatever it takes for this team to achieve a Midwest Conference Championship"

Ryan Fletcher '11: "Being All In is simple. It means completely devoting yourself to the team and come game time, leaving it all on the field"

Pioneer Summer Internships

Every summer, Pioneer football players disperse across the country for their exciting summer internships. Throughout the course of the summer, they will share their experiences here. Today's entry comes from offensive lineman Jake McVeigh '11:



I do preliminary research for the ACLU as well as handle letters and emails asking for the ACLU's help and advice. So far I have been researching the death penalty in the state of Nebraska. I am looking at different strategies other states have used to eliminate the death penalty. I do a range of things from filing closed case files, answering letters and other daily office jobs. I was given a couple of bigger tasks for the summer. I am working on a survey to find how well high schools in Nebraska have been keeping student records private.

New Pioneer Jerseys!

Just in today!!! Our new away game jerseys!!!

Pioneer Summer Internships

Every summer, Pioneer football players disperse across the country for their exciting summer internships. Throughout the course of the summer, they will share their experiences here. Today's entry comes from economics major and tight end Joey Snyder '10:

I am doing an internship in my hometown: Reserve, NM. I am working at the Catron County Courthouse, as a County Manager intern. The county manager works along with the three elected county commissioners to make all decision regarding the entire county of Catron County, which is the largest county by size in the state. The county manager deals with issues from financing new projects, such as a new all-purpose building to be built at the local rodeo grounds to the budget for all the counties money, and even small things as to what the county should do with solid waste. So far, I have learned alot about the overall economic world of how a County is run, where revenues come from, what type of expenses are made, and the type of issues that arise within a rural county such as Catron County. I will also be spending one day a week working with the Village of Reserve office, which is a small branch of the County. There I will also be working on budgeting and issues just within the town of Reserve, rather then the county. So, I am getting to become infomed about what goes on at the State, County, and City/Village level.