Senior edition

and a few linoleum prints. Despite the pandemic, Thompson had the opportunity to study abroad in Germany during his second year through the Institute for the International Education of Students (IES). Thompson never physically attended Humboldt University in Berlin, as the professors from Humboldt came to teach at the IES study center. In fact, after the program, Thompson managed to end up 12 credits short of a completed German studies major and officially declared.

“It’s funny to have a fourthyear interview because honestly, yes, I am ready to leave, but also, I’ve had one more quarter of Grinnell time on campus versus off campus,” Thompson said.

Thompson’s most beloved relief piece is titled “Berlin,” representing his time abroad through a mix of static and moving ele- ments as well as improvisational and planned mark-making. He explained that he did not want the piece to be only about his study abroad experience, but he could not help but be inspired by the train stations in Berlin.

If you catch a glimpse of Thompson or his girlfriend Anna Wilson `23, then you are sure to see more of Thompson’s inspired artwork since he is also an avid local tattoo artist. Starting as a first year, Thompson’s close friends were the first canvases he practiced on before eventually tattooing strangers and acquaintances. He notably uses a pay-as-you-can system which allows patrons to defer payment until their earliest convenience.

“I’m not recommending other people do this, but I did a lot of research on how to do it safely,” Thompson said. “I also happened to have a lot of friends that were either gracious or dumb enough to let me practice on them.”

Thompson is also involved in student advocacy and labor organizing on campus, serving as a member of both the Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers organizing and bargaining teams. He said he believes that student organizing can be a powerful force on campus, and he is committed to making it more accessible. Thompson said he believes that Grinnell’s history of advocacy is recent, and he said there is a need for more student involvement to create a more equitable campus community.

“I want to see people at Grinnell feeling empowered to start their own things, not feeling like they need permission from SGA or administration to start organizations,” Thompson said. “There’s so much power in student organizing.”

By Zach Spindler-Krage spindler@grinnell.edu

If you were tasked with finding Theo Prineas `23 in a campus-wide game of hide-and-seek, there are a few key spots you could start with. Perhaps begin in Kistle Science Library, where he works the 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. shift for 10 hours per week. If you cannot find him there, check to see if he is reading in Burling Library. If he is not in either library, chances are he is taking a nap on the lush, green grass of the soccer fields.

If all else fails, organize a book club for “Fairy Tale” by Stephen King — he will certainly come out of hiding to discuss his favorite book. You will know you have the right guy if he’s wearing a t-shirt that reads, “What’s More Punk Than The Public Library?” If you ask about the shirt, be prepared for an enthusiastic monologue about the importance of public libraries. He may want to tell you that the only thing more “punk” than libraries is politics, but he is worried that would make him a nihilist.

Prineas grew up in Solon, a town of 3,000 people located 10 miles north of Iowa City. As a teenager, Prineas had eight goats, four chickens, bees and an aviary. He enjoyed the solitude of the small town, but he was excitedly awaiting an opportunity to move to a Democratic city with a popular public library.

After he graduated from Iowa City High School in 2018, Prineas took a gap year and moved into an apartment in Iowa City to work at the Iowa City Public Library. Prineas was not new to the library as he had volunteered there since he was 13 years old and was employed part-time since age 16. The full year of focused work, however, gave Prineas an even greater appreciation and passion for public libraries.

“Libraries are one of the few places that you can gather in without paying,” said Prineas. “One of our biggest clientele at Iowa City Public Library was homeless people, but we’d also get people like University of Iowa professors. You get to interact with a wide variety of people, which is a good civic value that is not present in a lot of other American institutions.”

Prineas then attended the University of Iowa for the 2019-2020 school year before transferring to Grinnell to intensely focus on political science and English for his remaining three years. This year, Pri- peaked because I was in charge of the whole campaign,” Prineas said. “It was probably the biggest emotional high I’ve ever had. It was such an honor to be able to do it.”

Prineas said he thinks that local and state government is often undervalued by students, and as a result, he wants to leave a legacy as an advocate for students’ participation in local elections.

“We are a part of the Grinnell community, and that means we need to have a voice in it,” Prineas said. “The attempted book bannings are a frightening example of the marriage

Prineas is pained to say that many Democratic candidates may no longer have consistent success in Iowa’s increasingly Republican-controlled offices. However, Prineas said he is intrigued by the idea of assisting with state and federal elections in potential swing states like Michigan or Minnesota. Yet, he is hesitant about a long-term career in politics.

“I think I will go to grad school eventually, but I would consider going for English instead of political science,” Prineas said regarding his future plans. “All the signals in my life are telling me to do English, but the market is telling me not to.”

Prineas said that his sibling, Maud Prineas, who is five years older, has played a significant role in shaping his thought process. “They are always somebody I look up to, and I put their advice before anybody else’s,” said Prineas. “They have really helped me figure out my direction.” neas served as president of Grinnell College Campus Democrats, a role that allowed him to share an abundance of political experience and advice with fellow students.

However, Prineas does not need help figuring out that he will get a cat as soon as finances allow. He also feels confident about his desire to eventually live in a secluded part of Colorado where he can spend time outside hiking and skateboarding.

Prineas has worked on four prominent city council and state legislature campaigns in Iowa, but he is most proud of his time spent as campaign manager for Christina Bohannan. In 2020, Bohannan defeated her Iowa House opponent by 30 percentage points in the primary, going on to win the uncontested general election.

“I think that’s where my life of politics and libraries. If Grinnell students made sure to vote, we may not have a school board that tries to ban books.”

In the summer of 2022, Prineas took a brief break from domestic politics when he interned at the Julien J. Studley School of International Affairs in New York City. Prineas completed baseline research about the food crisis induced by the war in Ukraine. His research contributed to a memo that was circulated in the General Assembly of the United Nations.

As he considers his next steps,

When he reflected on his time at Grinnell, Prineas said he is grateful that he was able to focus almost exclusively on his passions for politics, English and libraries. He also said he appreciates the support of his advisors, Danielle Lussier, political science, and Paula Smith, English, and his particularly memorable time with professors Sherif Abdelkarim, English, and Sheahan Virgin `08, political science.

Whatever comes next, Prineas is prepared to make plenty of time for reading and frequent trips to the local public library. Equally as important, he will always make sure to find a sunny field to nap in.

By Oliver Palmer palmerol@grinnell.edu

Koffi Amegble `23 is a graduating first-generation, low-income student and biology major. At Grinnell, Amegble developed himself personally and academically with the help of close friends and professors. Over his four years at Grinnell, Amegble had a plethora of experiences ranging from COVID-19 and online classes to learning how to lift weights and ask others for help.

Amegble was born in Togo and emigrated with his parents to the United States when he was three years old. Since arriving in the United States, Amegble and his family have moved several times, never staying in one location for more than three to four years at a time. He is the first of his family to attend college.

When Amegble arrived in Grinnell, he said that his low-income background played a role in how he felt he fit in amongst his peers.

“I can say at times, things feel uncomfortable given that you’re not always working with the same starting hand as a lot of people. So in some ways, you kind of feel like an outsider because you can’t always have the fanciest or the best resources,” Amegble said.

Amegble said that the Charles Benson Bear `39 Recreation and Athletic Center (Bear), specifically the weight room, is the space on campus that best reflects his time at Grinnell, in part because it is one of the first places where he felt “seen.”

Amegble had worked out a few times in his first year, but according to him, he “did not know what the heck” he was doing.

With the pandemic occurring during the second semester of his first year, and the personal protective equipment requirements, Amegble said that it was hard to work out consistently during that time.

“I remember after the pandemic we came back to campus and I was really struggling with self-image and just my overall health” Amegble said, “A few upperclassmen took me under their wing and got me into going [to the gym] consistently. “

Amegble became close friends with Seif Abdelaziz Emam `22 in his third year after he asked Emam for beginner exercises that he could do.

“I was really inspired by his physique and his work ethic. I noticed that despite having a stressful schedule and everything, he still managed to display peace within himself and also make time for priorities like lifting, and staying in shape and everything just for his own personal sanity,” Amegble said.

With Emam, Amegble began going consistently and making progress in his lifting form and selfconfidence.

It was also at the Bear where Amegble said he learned to see failure in a different light than before.

“The Bear was the first place where I was like failure was kind of a good thing in a way, and so once I realized, ‘hey, I failed, the world didn’t explode,’ it wasn’t game over. I started realizing that meant, academically, it was kind of the same,” Amegble said.

Aside from the Bear, Amegble also had several professors and faculty who helped him throughout his time at Grinnell.

In his first year, Amegble said that he was struggling with personal issues and being able to keep up with coursework, which led to him being connected with Belinda Backous, assistant dean for academic success.

“Ever since then, I gradually started escaping from the emotions of that day and started living in the present again, and to this day, she and I are best friends,” Amegble said.

Also in his first year, Amegble joined the Minority Association of Premedical Students, a national organization that provides underrepresented groups with the experience they need to succeed in the professional medical field. He is currently a co-leader of this group at Grinnell, and he is also a part of the Black Students in Stem club and the Black Student Union.

In the second semester of his first year, the COVID pandemic led to Amegble going back home with his family. Amegble said that he speaks English better than his mother, so he would take on the responsibility of contacting the landlord for maintenance and other things.

“I wasn’t allowed to just be a student, I had to do tenant duties and stuff, too,” Amegble said.

Online classes also presented another challenge for Amegble — he never experienced in-person labs for his biology classes.

Amegble said that this led to him feeling uneasy about lab work in his third-year classes, but Charvann Bailey, assistant professor of biology, gave him space to learn and develop his lab skills while he was in her class.

“She was the one that kind of inspired me to continue staying in the biological sciences,” Amegble said.

Amegble has also collaborated with Bailey on cancer research for the last two summers through a Grinnell Mentored Advanced Project (MAP). Amegble said that Bailey also helped him get into a cancer research position at the University of Iowa during his summer MAP.

Upon graduation, Amegble will be returning to the University of Iowa to work with the research team he was a part of last summer.

When reflecting on his time at Grinnell, Amegble said, “I’m gonna really miss just that personalized, you know, relationships you can have with professors, and staff and students here at the College.”

Amegble said he is most proud of the fact that he did not give up even when he was not getting the grades he wanted and was stressed out.

“And so I took that [not getting the grades I wanted] as a sign of, like, maybe I wasn’t cut out for this place. But at the same time, I felt like because I was a first-gen, low-income I had to think about the image I’m setting for my sister.”

Amegble said that in his first two years, he would prioritize his grades over his health in an attempt to maintain a high GPA for grad school. His advice for underclassmen stems from his experience of this and the impact it had on his health.

“Never stop putting your health first. Design your schedule around a guaranteed time for [your] gym/ wellness as opposed to seeing when you can fit in your wellness inside of your Grinnell schedule,” he said.

By Allison Moore mooreall2@grinnell.edu

Letícia Monteiro `23 always knew that she wanted to act and perform. “Oh my God, I knew ever since I was, like, a baby,” she said.

An international student from Brazil, Monteiro always had lofty goals. As the first person in her family to attend college in the U.S., Monteiro said that she sacrificed a lot for her education. “I came here without ever having stepped foot on American soil, without having visited the College,” she said.

Monteiro started acting lessons at seven years old, but said that theater and acting are not taken as seriously in Brazil. Thus, she knew she wanted more opportunities to find a community that recognized the validity and value of acting as a profession.

When searching for schools in the U.S., Monteiro said she had little guidance, but she eventually decided that a liberal arts education would allow her to explore all theatrical areas and become a more well-rounded artist. She said all the schools that accepted her were liberal arts institutions. “I guess I fit the profile,” she joked.

But why Grinnell in particular? “I had a gut feeling that this [Grinnell] is where I should go, and I don’t really know how to explain that. The women in my family are very intuitive — all of us — and I think we were all feeling like … maybe that’s the right place,” Monteiro said.

During her first semester at the College, Monteiro said she was disheartened that both students and faculty in the Grinnell theatre, dance and performance studies (TDPS) department were primarily white and American. “I felt that I was missing something here,” she said.

Additionally, Monteiro said her Tutorial advisor insisted that she take a Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) course in her second semester. When she told this to John Garrison, professor of English, he offered to be Monteiro’s advisor instead, so she declared an English major during her first year. Monteiro said she will proudly graduate without ever taking a STEM class.

However, after taking Introduction to Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies (GWSS) with assistant professor Leah Allen, GWSS, Monteiro broke the news to Garrison that she wanted to switch to a double major in TDPS and GWSS.

For Monteiro, this combination of majors allowed her to “draw upon this ancestral, cultural knowledge that I got from my grandma and my mom. All the women in my family, my mom says that they are magical women ahead of their time.” She continued, “I’ve always been super interested in social change and how to do it through art … I’ve always had that instinct of telling the invisible, forgotten stories of my peoples.”

After being sent home to Brazil in 2020 during the COVID pandemic, Monteiro took the opportunity to spend time with her family and focus on her craft. She found various online courses from graduate students from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University, New York University and The Juilliard School that for the first time provided her with a BIPOC-exclusive space that made her feel more recognized and valued.

During the spring of her second year, Monteiro studied at the National Theatre Institute (NTI) in Waterford, Connecticut. “I decided to study off campus, but I also knew I wanted to stay in the U.S. I think I came here for a reason, like artistically, and I wanted to pursue that,” said Monteiro.

While at NTI, Monteiro said she had classes 7 days a week for 10-12 hours each day. “It’s a place with a lot of energy, you feel it in the ground,” she said. “It was so intense. It was hard. I was like, ‘okay, as an artist, I need rest.’ So I learned that for sure.”

Nevertheless, Monteiro said she was excited to be in a place that solely focused on theater — “the practice and not necessarily the theory,” she said.

One day, the artistic director at NTI approached Monteiro at lunch and informed her that her scholarship came from Lin-Manuel Miranda, an actor, director, songwriter and playwright famous for his work on “Hamilton,” “In the Heights” and “Moana,” to name a few. “I started laughing, and she was like, ‘no, I’m serious,’” Monteiro said.

The director explained that Miranda saw Monteiro’s application materials and not only donated money towards her education, but also offered her a place in the Miranda Family Fellowship for the next two years. After she graduates, Monteiro said that she will take a year to focus on the fellowship, where she will receive artistic and professional mentorship and will be able to audition for Miranda’s various artistic projects.

“I’m one of the only international artists [in the fellowship] which is always so much fun to see everything that I’m accomplishing,” Monteiro said. “Especially after everything I went through as a queer artist of color, as a Latina, as a Brazilian … sometimes feeling like I had to work twice as hard as other people in the [Grinnell

TDPS] department”

Not ready to return to Grinnell after her semester at NTI, Garrison informed Monteiro that she could in fact do a full year abroad. “Nobody told me this!” she said.

Monteiro found a program at The Second City, a Chicago theater famous for improv and celebrity alums like Tina Fey and Steve Carrell. “I really wanted to go back to this place of joy when performing,” Monteiro said.

Although she emailed the program late, Monteiro said that The Second City program for college students must have been impressed with her passion, and she was accepted. There, Monteiro performed on The Second City stage for the public and had “a wonderful time filled with joy and comedy.”

Now in her last semester back on campus, Monteiro said, “There’s something special here, and I think people are cherishing each other and being very genuine, and loving and joyful.”

After graduation, Monteiro looks forward to returning to Brazil to spend more time with her family, especially her grandmother. “[She is] the most important person in my life. There is no other way to describe our relationship. She is the sweetest, most kind person I’ve ever met,”

Monteiro said. “I saw her as a mentor throughout my entire life and really learned how to share space with other people by watching her and how she treated people, how she collaborated with people.”

If Monteiro were to offer advice to her first-year self, she has two simple words — “Persist and resist.” She continued, “Remember, you do have a place here even when you feel that you don’t, when people make you believe that you don’t … Your humanity has so much value. You are enough. Remember to bring that beauty, wisdom, Brazilianness, Latinidad.”

By Taylor Nunley nunleyta@grinnell.edu

When Morell Old `23 was in elementary school, they told their mother their favorite day was test day because “everyone was quiet.” On Grinnell College’s campus, Old continued to find respite from the bustle of student life in Burling Library’s books and tranquility.

For Old’s four years at Grinnell, they have had a toe dipped in a little bit of everything — double majoring in classics and biology, leading as co-president of the Fiber Arts Club and a two-year stint at the S&B are all just a small fraction of what Old has filled their time with. But one of their defining traits is their hate for competition.

“I do not like competition really in anything, especially games. I will avoid playing board games to the best of my ability because I’m a really sore loser, but I’m also a sore winner,” Old said.

Old said they see the biology field as filled with competition and, despite their love for the subject, if they were to pursue their specific interest in ecology, it would feel like “competing for grant proposals my whole life.”

However, Old found a different passion while at Grinnell — librarianship. Old has worked at Burling Library since the summer of 2021. Burling was where their passion for librarianship was first fostered, and Old will be pursuing a Master of Arts in Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this upcoming fall. To them, a future job environment of a library would curb the competitiveness that comes with academia.

With Old’s choice of their majors growing out of the childhood love they had for the disciplines, Old’s pursuit of librarianship only seemed natural.

“I was the little kid who knew all the facts about animals,” Old said. “And also my particular biology interest is taxonomy, which is like organizing everything … it reminds me of classics in a way of making sure everything is organized in its place and understanding the world.”

In the summer of 2021, when Old began their job as a cataloging and processing student assistant at Burling, they had a number of academic opportunities taken from them because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Near the end of their first year in 2020, before the pandemic sent students home, Old had applied not only to the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, a study abroad program in Greece, but also to a number of Research Experiences for Undergraduates. But in March 2020, these opportunities were pushed back to 2021 and, eventually, outright canceled.

“I was like, ‘it’s not meant to be,’” Old said. “So I’ve actually not studied abroad or done research in my entire time at Grinnell basically … That never happened, but it’s okay. I move on, and I find sources of joy in my life.”

Old found solace between the pages of Burling’s books and from their roommate’s cat, Butterscotch, in the summer break between their second and third years.

One of Old’s favorite parts about their job at Burling is their chance to be a “tastemaker and an influencer.” As part of their job, Old is one of the people who choose what books go on the library’s current and popular shelf, and they also design the monthly themed display in front of this shelf.

“The other thing I do that is influencer-y that I make jokes about with my supervisor is that whenever I would put up a display, they would take a picture of me with the display and put it on the Grinnell College Libraries Instagram. That is the joke that I make. That I’m basically an Instagram model,” Old said.

Old found subjective fame in the classics sphere, too. In a Latin seminar on Vergil, an ancient Roman poet, Old recalled their professor saying it was near impossible to keep the integrity of the original Latin of the epic poem the “Aeneid” when translating it into English. Old, who greatly enjoys creative writing, took this as a personal challenge.

In the spring of 2022, they composed a translation of an excerpt of Vergil’s “Aeneid” for a final project in the class. A friend and former mentee of theirs — Old is also a Latin tutor — then encouraged them to submit it to “Animus,” the University of Chicago’s undergraduate classics journal.

Old said they were “not really expecting anything” when submitting their translation to “Animus.” Old’s translation was accepted and published at the beginning of 2023.

“It feels very validating to be published,” they said.

Old’s translation is not the only work they have published. They have also been published in the Grinnell Review and the Grinnell Underground Magazine. They said writing is their “hobby outside of school.”

“I feel like words and written language have become natural to me in a way because I’ve written and read so much that I sort of know how words fit together on the page,” Old said.

Despite common beliefs that English translations of classical works often are not faithful to the original texts and are instead boringly dense, Old still sees the beauty in translating their ancient Greek and Latin class readings over the years.

“In class, I don’t like the ambiguity, but when you’re translating a poem for yourself, you can choose the meaning. Like with the ablative, you can translate it as causal or instrumental … It makes it interesting to translate, and you can make choices,” Old said.

The ablative case, a noun case in the Latin language, often can be translated in a variety of ways, sometimes functioning as an adverbial phrase or even as a phrase denoting place.

In a fitting Burling Library student worker fashion, Old recommended their top two favorite books in Burling — Sharma Shields’ “The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac: A Novel” and Ian McGuire’s “The North Water.”