Grinnell College

Prominent alumni

• Benjamin Barber, political theorist
• Nordahl Brue, lawyer/entrepreneur, founder of Bruegger's Bagels
• Thomas R. Cech, scientist and Nobel Prize winner
• Amy Clampitt, poet
• Tom Cole, U.S. Congressman (2002-present)
• Mary Sue Coleman, President of the University of Michigan
• Gary Cooper, actor
• Peter Coyote, actor
• Hallie Flanagan, playwright, educator, and director of the Federal Theater Project
• John Garang, former leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army and former vice president of Sudan
• Gary Giddins, Jazz Critic and Author
• James Norman Hall, author
• Herbie Hancock, jazz musician and composer
• Edward Hirsch, poet
• Harry Hopkins, WPA administrator and architect of the New Deal
• William S. Kenyon, politician, U.S. Senator (1911-22)
• Walter Koenig, actor
• George Moose, diplomat
• Robert Noyce, co-founder of Intel, co-inventor of integrated circuit
• Claire Patterson, geochemist and environmentalist
• Morgan Taylor, Olympic champion
• Otha Wearin, politician, U.S. Congressman (1933-39)
• Joseph Welch, attorney who represented the U.S. Army in Army-McCarthy Hearings
• Alan Wheat, politician, U.S. Congressman (1983-95)