Alumni Senior Awards 2020
The Grinnell College Alumni Council along with a committee of alumni, faculty, and staff selected three graduating seniors to receive the 2020 Alumni Senior Awards. Seniors were nominated for the award by their class of 2020 peers. This year we honored the following individuals:
Mahira Faran ’20, Kaitlynn Goss-Pearce ’20, and Imany Noel ’20
Mahira Faran
Mahira demonstrates the spirit of Grinnell, not only through her service to classmates and the College community, but as a driven and detail-oriented campus leader. She was instrumental in multiple student organizations and roles including serving as a student class ambassador, a Student Government Association senator; International Pre-Orientation Program (IPOP), economics, and Global Development Studies Student Educational Policy Committee (SEPC) positions; and as South Asian Student Association (SASO) president and Pakistani representative. In her role as SASO president, she led efforts to connect local organizations, and successfully planned, organized, and photographed events that will be memorable for many years to come. Making unforgettable memories is one of Mahira’s missions in her service to her classmates and to the campus and global communities. An incredibly dedicated individual, Mahira frequently went the extra mile. She has a unique talent of knowing how to design an experience that leaves an impression, and one that makes every participant feel special. She was committed to supporting not only an inclusive campus environment, but also global efforts to curb child trafficking in West Africa through her Global Development Studies internship while studying abroad in Ghana. Mahira embodies the cliché “you can do anything that you put your mind to.”
Kaitlynn Goss-Pearce
Intellectually curious, creative, reliable, and committed to others’ success within and outside of the classroom are some distinct representations of how Kaitlyn exhibits the spirit of Grinnell College. She has served as the philanthropy chair and co-president of the Student Alumni Council, and participated in Phonathon on campus. In these roles, she was incredibly engaged in the Grinnell community serving community meals, arranging volunteer shifts for Tiger Packs, and reaching out to community leaders for insight. Kaitlyn showed exceptional commitment when, during her third year, she helped to coordinate, plan, and organize volunteers for the National Philanthropy Week talent show while she was studying abroad in London. She is an enthusiastic supporter of others’ achievements and a driving force behind opportunities for engagement between students and the external community. She showed great zeal in creating programs related to literary engagement activities with children in Grinnell. As an English major, Kaitlyn demonstrated a deep intellectual curiosity, and consistently displayed a high level of thinking and writing. Her presentations and discussions during classes gave other students a richer experience of the books and subjects being studied. Through her hard work and service, she wonderfully epitomizes the motto, “Grinnellians ask hard questions and question easy answers.”
Imany Noel
For Imany, service to the community is not limited to the boundaries of Grinnell’s campus. During her time at Grinnell, Imany volunteered for the Grinnell Advocates, Grinnell Regional Medical Center, Blank Park Zoo, and tutored middle school students while studying abroad in Aix, France. Her commitment to social justice is evident in the groups and spaces in which she served the community: the MAPs mentoring group, Concerned Black Students, The Black Cultural Center, Student Government Association’s All Campus Committee, and the Minority Association for Pre-Medical Students. A highly motivated, hard-working student, Imany always looks for ways to engage with the world with care and compassion. She values the small moments and loves to make a positive impact on people’s lives. Indeed, her motivation to major not only in biochemistry but also in French resides in her curiosity about the world and her desire to be exposed to different health care practices to serve a wide range of populations. She has been selected for the prestigious Chicago Academic Medicine Program at the University of Chicago. Imany’s compassion, resilience, global and intellectual curiosity, and advocacy for minority communities will positively impact the people she encounters and serves in her future in the medical field.
Previous Recipients
2019
2018
2017
2016