Susan Holden McCurry ’71 to receive Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award at Reunion 2026
April 23, 2026 — Retired Trustee Susan Holden McCurry ’71 still vividly recalls the Board of Trustees meeting around 15 years ago when former Grinnell College President Raynard Kington issued a challenge.
To continue to attract top students to Grinnell, Kington pointed out the College couldn’t simply maintain the status quo. The challenge was “how can we distinguish Grinnell College from our peer institutions?” McCurry recalls. “That made me think about an idea in which I could participate in a meaningful way. It didn’t happen overnight.”
Eventually, after many hours and months of discussions and refinement with David Harrison [interim director of the Center for International Studies at the time] taking the lead in development of the program, the idea turned into the Global Learning Program. GLP is an interdisciplinary and comparative semester-long course for first-year students that includes classroom and travel components. McCurry and her family foundation – the Roland & Ruby Holden Foundation – initially established funding for the GLP in 2015 with a $4 million gift.
Retired Trustee Susan Holden McCurry ’71, middle of first row, is pictured with the first Global Learning Program class in spring 2016.
The popular program is going strong 11 years later and is the centerpiece in Grinnell’s distinctive global study, fostering faculty members’ innovative ideas for courses and students’ memorable experiences. This spring, for the first time, the Institute for Global Engagement (IGE) is offering three GLP courses concurrently, extending the capacity to include 45 first-year students, comprising over 10 percent of the first-year class at Grinnell.
“What is really heartwarming about the GLP is the immediate cohesive group that it formed between faculty and students and between students themselves,” McCurry says. “They have a cohort that is a lifelong group of friends because of the experiences they shared. It’s been wonderful to see how the program has grown. It’s more than I could have anticipated.”
McCurry is the second recipient of Grinnell College’s Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award. She will receive the award from President Anne F. Harris at Alumni Assembly May 30 during Reunion 2026.
This prestigious honor is designed to recognize a distinguished senior member of the alumni community who has demonstrated outstanding leadership, a commitment to service, and exemplary character in their personal and professional lives. Randy Morgan ’65, DS ’92 was the inaugural recipient last year.
“I am both humbled by and grateful for Susan’s extraordinary foresight, thoughtfulness, and generosity,” Harris says. “Through her visionary work to bring the GLP to life, she invites students to connect with the world through the framework of interdisciplinary coursework and on-site study all over the world. Susan also has been an extraordinary leader and advocate for the College through her dedication as a trustee and event host for multiple alumni events. I’m looking forward to presenting this well-deserved award to her at Reunion.”
McCurry says she’s thrilled to receive the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award and grateful to the College. “Everything Grinnell College has given me outweighs, in my opinion, everything I have given back to the College,” she says.
Student life at Grinnell
McCurry grew up in Williamsburg, Iowa. A high school counselor regularly took some students to visit Grinnell because of its reputation as the best college in the state.
“My father wanted me to go to an Eastern girls school, which really didn’t appeal to me,” McCurry says. “My counselor encouraged me to apply to Grinnell. A female student a year ahead of me from my high school that was pre-med was there. I visited her on campus and liked the campus and professors I met while shadowing her.”
In this photo from her student days, McCurry, left, is pictured with classmates Suzanne Griset ’71 and Diedre Prikopa Jones ’71.
McCurry majored in psychology but took a variety of classes in other departments and toyed with switching her study to history. “I had some outstanding professors, starting with my humanities professor freshman year, John Crossett,” she says. “Others that I had were Al Jones ’50 and Constitutional History with Joe Wall ’41. Those professors had a major impact on me.”
McCurry lived in James Hall, which was still women-only when she arrived in 1967. She remains close to her roommates today and will share a room with them at Reunion 2026.
“We had a close association throughout college,” she says. “We had formal dances during that time, and we had our Sunday meals where the men had to dress in coat and tie – whether they tied their tie seemed to be optional, but they had them on. We sang before meals, and we participated in athletic events and plays. We had some tremendous lectures. My freshman year was the convocation with Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Friendly, Ralph Ellison, and over 20 other prominent speakers.”
From CFO to BOT
Early in her career, McCurry held several positions as director of preschools and daycare centers in San Diego while she continued her education in early childhood development and administration. McCurry joined the family businesses Holden’s Foundation Seeds, Inc. and Hawaiian Research, Ltd. in 1978, serving as CFO. Both companies specialized in seed research and development.
She remained involved in the companies until the sale of Holden’s Foundation Seeds in 1997 and Hawaiian Research in 2001 to Monsanto. She was elected to the Grinnell College Board of Trustees in 2003 and has served on several other boards and organizations over the years.
During a visit back to campus in 2024, McCurry listened to students talk about their Global Learning Program experiences.
“I was used to a fast pace and demanding profession, and it came to a quick stop at an early age after we sold our businesses,” she says. “I found myself looking for other endeavors to be involved with that were meaningful,” she says. “I’ve been involved with a number of organizations, but Grinnell has always been the top priority.”
McCurry served as an active trustee for 16 years before becoming a retired trustee in 2019. Her favorite thing about serving on the board was the association with fellow board members who were dedicated to the future of the College.
“Presidents [Russell] Osgood and Kington were, in my opinion, great leaders” McCurry says. “They were dedicated to the need-blind mission of the college. We were going through challenging times that many liberal arts colleges faced. There were many things that needed improvements, not just with facilities, but programs to attract faculty and students to a small community in the Midwest.”
Naples and around the world
McCurry took over hosting an annual January alumni event in Naples, Florida, from another trustee John H. Harris ’39, the namesake of Harris Center on campus. McCurry has hosted the Naples event for the last 22 years, bringing alums from all over Florida together with the Grinnell College swimming team, which holds a spring training in the area.
“It is really exciting for alumni attendees to interact with current students who have their pulse on what is happening on campus,” McCurry says. “It’s just joyful to watch the interaction between them.”
In January 2025, McCurry pledged a $4.4 million gift to renew and expand the Global Learning Program. When she returns to campus, McCurry often meets with a group of students who went on GLP trips. Over the past years, I have visited classes prior to the travel component and also traveled abroad with a few classes.
McCurry visits with Dr. Randy Morgan ’65 and his wife, Karen Morgan, at the 2020 Naples alumni luncheon. Morgan and McCurry are the first two recipients of Grinnell’s Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award.
“I listen to professors and students talk about their experiences. Students share how it changed what they want to study at Grinnell,” McCurry says. “That’s the biggest impact that you can hope for them. Not only the way they look at future classes in a comprehensive way, but how they might like to take more language classes and study abroad later. For faculty, they love the idea of co-creating new courses with great enthusiasm.”
“Without the willingness of David Harrison and currently Brigittine French [assistant vice president of global education] and the administration’s support of the program as part of international studies, this program would not exist,” she adds. “I want to express my appreciation for their support.”
Nhi Vu ’28 who took part in the GLP’s Theorizing Dance and Language course in spring 2025 that traveled to London and Prague, said it was difficult to express how grateful she was for that opportunity.
“A little girl from Hanoi, Vietnam, could never have imagined that she would get to see, feel, smell, and taste Europe on her 19th birthday,” Vu says. “This experience was life-changing for me. To say ‘unforgettable’ would be an understatement. I will forever hold this to my heart.”
—by Jeremy Shapiro