Young alumni couple who received care packages as students goes all in on assembly this year
March 18, 2026 — As a freelance writer and author, Laura El Alam ’97 is never short of ideas. Born and raised in St. Louis, where she attended Catholic schools from first grade through high school, El Alam chose to become a Muslim in 2000 and at the same time wear a headscarf as a symbol of her faith.
At that point, life dramatically changed.
“The world started interacting with me in a very different way,” says El Alam, who was known as Laura Schulte at Grinnell. “The way people perceived me changed so much. They see the scarf and have a lot of preconceptions and misinformation. A lot of people assume I don’t speak English, and they’ll ask where I’m from.”
Laura El Alam ’97
When she tells them St. Louis, they’ll repeat the question emphatically: “But where are you from?”
“I decided that my writing could be one way to clarify a lot for people, so hopefully when they interact with a Muslim woman, they won’t have so many stereotypes or negative ideas,” she says.
Married to Noureddine El Alam, a math instructor and soccer coach at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, (where former Grinnell College President Raynard Kington is head of school), and the mother of four daughters and a son, Laura’s path to Islam unfolded in steps.
“Grinnell was only five hours away from home, but with its international and diverse student body and such freedom to think about things differently, it got me out of my bubble,” she says.
A Spanish major who focused on literature, she spent her third year studying in Spain and visited Islamic spaces, including Sevilla’s Alcazar Gardens and the Alhambra in Granada.
“They felt peaceful to me and a little familiar,” she recalls. “Those were seeds being planted.”
A brief trip to Morocco was also significant. “I didn’t know about Islam growing up, and I hadn’t been exposed to any Muslims in my childhood. Going to Morocco for that first time at age 20 was my first real exposure to Islamic culture,” she says. “I have to remind myself that not everyone has had that experience.”
Two years after graduating from Grinnell, she met Noureddine at a private boarding school in Massachusetts; Laura was a development writer and he was teaching math. Coincidentally, Laura had visited the same Moroccan beach town where Noureddine had vacationed growing up. “When we met, we had a lot to talk about,” she says. “There was an instant connection.”
The two married in 1999, and a few years later moved to southern California, when Noureddine was hired as head of the math department and a founding faculty member of a private school. They stayed there for 18 years, raising their kids in a tight-knit and welcoming Muslim community.
“I didn’t have to convert when I got married,” Laura explains. “But his family was so very kind, welcoming and respectful. Moroccans are known for their hospitality and generosity, and I was positively affected by them. I think had there been any pressure I would have run in the other direction.”
Bookcover for Made From the Same Dough
Her beliefs bring her peace and comfort. “For me, Islam is a religion of peace and being a good, kind, and decent human being. If you’re not doing that, you’re not doing Islam right.”
Their children range in age from 10 to 25 and for much of her life, Laura has tried to balance her work as a stay-at-home mom with her passion for writing. But as the kids grew, she’s had more time to develop her freelance writing and editing business. In addition to editing others’ work, she writes for a range of Muslim publications, focusing on her experience as an American convert as well as the topics of Muslim American identity, parenting, and women’s rights.
She’s also written a children’s picture book, Made From the Same Dough, about a Muslim child and his non-Muslim grandfather celebrating Ramadan. She was asked to write it after the publisher saw an article Laura wrote about her Catholic father spending Ramadan with Laura’s family and friends.
While most of Laura’s family have been accepting of her religion – her favorite uncle is a Jesuit priest who’s extremely supportive – others still don’t approve.
“We know there are a lot of people who don’t embrace diversity,” she says. “Many Americans feel like they have a monopoly on what American culture is and what Americans look like, dress like, and worship, and that’s very short-sighted.”
The experience of becoming a Muslim has widened her perspectives. “I’ll never say I know what it’s like to be another minority, but with this scarf I’m a religious minority,” she says. “To feel discrimination and microaggressions firsthand is different than reading about them in books. It’s very eye-opening. It has built empathy and changed my own life experiences and ways of seeing the world.”
—by Anne Stein ’84