Opinion: Organize, then implement: In search of a new campus culture

We are desperately searching for a new campus culture, yet we barely recognize what came before us. We rely on oral histories passed down from seniors, fragments of tradition whispered between graduating classes. Last semester, I read “preserve institutional memory” scrawled on the Burling Library walls. It’s probably scratched there somewhere, yet painted over every year. Our traditions and history are so transient and fleeting, yet we erase what we do immortalize. So I ask, how can we preserve what we never properly documented?

Inspired by Dartmouth and Tufts, the Class of 2028’s Medallion ceremony was replaced with an “illumination ceremony” — layered with an Anne Harris speech, two student oralists, Con Brio, and too many plastic switch-on candles to muster genuine excitement about the spark of intellectual student life at Grinnell.

Take yourself through any Grinnell event cycle these four years and you’ll see the pattern: the proliferation of Canva graphics. “Super whatever-the-hell socials” appear on your calendar. One-off events promise community but deliver little more than placeholder objects — offerings that exist on paper but remain functionally hollow. Consider the ubiquitous “hot chocolate meet-and-greet with officers of [X Organization].” These events often feel worse to promote than to attend. Even organizers struggle to explain why anyone should go. Pamphlets pile up on tables. The hot chocolate gets drunk, or we might be too socially shy to tear out the packet and drink it in front of other people.

This is organization without implementation.

The distinction matters profoundly. Organizing an event means reserving a room, ordering food and making a poster. Implementing an event means creating genuine reasons for participation, fostering purposeful connection and building something that matters beyond the timeslot itself.

Grinnell has perfected the art of programming by checkbox. Multicultural organizations (MLCs) are burdened with raising participation numbers to justify next year’s funding. The Student Government Association’s (SGA) funding policy inadvertently reinforces this: the more funds you expend may determine how much you receive next year. So organizations frantically spend, hosting event after event, measuring success by the frequency of events.

I often hear organizers evaluate whether an event was successful based on its numbers and how much outreach was made — rarely on whether people actually enjoyed it, whether it mattered to them or whether they’d come back. We’ve accepted institutional metrics as the only metrics that count. Fifty people who showed up for free food is considered a success story. Ten people who had a transformative conversation is seen as a failure to scale. The result? Food becomes the primary currency of event attendance. When programming lacks genuine purpose, organizations learn that the surest way to meet attendance metrics is to advertise free food. The medium becomes the message: we’re not here for connection or meaning, we’re here because we’re hungry and it’s convenient.

MLCs must whitewash their programming to appeal to broad tastes — bringing I-80 Dhaba, Chuong’s, and other approved vendors to the biggest events because it’s safe, because it draws a crowd, because it checks the box. The food becomes health-conscious, sanitized, less authentic than what we’d make in our own kitchens if we had the freedom and resources.

I’ve learned this lesson in small, personal ways. Outside the Global Kitchen, I often cook food from home — from Thailand. When people see what I’m eating and I offer them a taste, I get the familiar deflections: “I’m good,” “no thank you,” “maybe next time.” Different words, same message, that my food is something to politely avoid rather than genuinely consider.

But at official events? We serve the “approachable” dishes. The ones that won’t make anyone say “I’m good” because they’ve been stripped of anything unfamiliar. We’ve learned that for an event to succeed by institutional metrics, food cannot be exotic. It must be comfortable. Unthreatening. Generic enough to draw a crowd at a predominantly white institution.

More concerning is how students are losing agency to organize anything at all. We see institutional hints toward standardization: events must fit approved formats, the lack of ability to sponsor events, liability concerns trump student autonomy and risk-averse programming protects the institution rather than serves student needs. Community members no longer decide what social processes fit their needs — bureaucracy does. As per many events like the illumination ceremony above, [Weeknd] is another example of institutionally-friendly, lowest-liability programming. Bureaucracy is cringe. It is simply not Grinnellian.

The known Grinnellian exists in the ironic space between accepting institutional funding and preserving what we actually want to create. We navigate this contradiction daily, yet our event planning fails to acknowledge this reality. Instead, we get risk-averse programming designed to protect the institution from liability rather than serve student needs. As Conrad Dahm, Nick El Hajj and others have argued in these pages, we’re witnessing the slow erosion of what made this place distinct.

We must ask: What mediums, messages, and formats actually encourage us to interact with each other with purpose? Maybe there’s value in collaborative flip-chart paper exercises asking us to imagine peace or values together. Maybe intimate office hours and skillshares create space for connection that large programs cannot. Maybe the answer isn’t bigger events but different ones.

Why does a campus offering constant programming leave so many of us struggling to connect? Can we build campus culture that honors different ways of participating? Can we show up for people willing to speak, share, innovate and build new campus culture?

Organizing to make resources accessible is one thing. Implementing them meaningfully is another.

So what makes an event worth attending? What creates genuine occasions for community?

It’s not the quality of hot chocolate. It’s not the Canva graphic. It’s not even the 4-5:30 pm timeslot we’ve all memorized, running from Tuesday-Thursday presentations that start on time so you can sprint from your previous commitment.

Purposeful events create space for something that can only happen in that moment, with those people, for reasons that matter beyond organizational visibility. Cultural programming works at Grinnell when it brings something genuinely new to Iowa — not just food, but perspective, practice and politics.

Events that actually work pull people into the process of production itself. You co-create the experience rather than just attend it. Organizations should platform folks who are underrepresented, to create space for voices that institutional programming often overlooks diasporic groups and interests. There’s no gatekeeping about who gets to participate or how — no fixed bureaucratic formula, no insider knowledge required. The events grow organically, involving more and more people, because participation feels genuinely open and necessary.

We need to ask: what are the ways, mediums, and messages that encourage us to interact with each other with purpose? Why are we so anti-social, having the fear of sharing ourselves with the community despite being surrounded by programming? Can we show up for people willing to speak, share, innovate, and make up new campus culture? At some point, we will run out of ways to structure grand-scale events. There are only so many formats available in Grinnell, Iowa. There are only so many ways Con Brio can perform at a winter event. The limits are real.

But within those limits, we have a choice. We can continue with programming by checkbox, or we can demand implementation with purpose. We can accept placeholder objects, or we can insist on resources that actually work. We can let campus culture drift toward standardized bureaucracy, or we can reclaim the participatory, political culture that once defined this place.

Dear fellow Grinnellians: Organize, then for all of our sakes, implement.

Our community deserves better than Canva graphics and one-off socials. We deserve programming that acknowledges our ironic relationship with institutional resources while genuinely serving our needs. The question isn’t whether we can revitalize campus culture. It’s whether we’re willing to demand more than what’s easy, more than what’s safe, more than what checks the institutional box.

In search of a new campus culture, we must first recognize what we’ve lost — and then build something actually worth finding.