Coe News & Features

For decades, the Coe College Marquis Series has brought engaging entertainers and lecturers to the Cedar Rapids community, including nationally recognized musicians, speakers and performers. This year’s lineup is no exception, and Coe is thrilled to continue to welcome the Cedar Rapids community to attend and enjoy. You won’t want to miss this year’s guests!

For the third year in a row, Coe College is a top 100 liberal arts college in the nation as determined by contributions to the public good. Washington Monthly compiled the list of top colleges and ranked Coe at No. 90, which is in the top 7 percent of colleges evaluated.

Coe College is excited to invite local community members to participate in Thursday Forum, a weekly series in which Coe faculty share their expertise on a variety of topics of interest. Coe has been presenting this initiative to the community for over 30 years. This year, our series begins with insights on the Russia-Ukraine War, examines philosophy in filmmaking and ends with a series to make complex physics more approachable.

Coe College will welcome one of the largest and most geographically diverse incoming classes in its 173-year history. With 436 new students indicating they are planning to enroll, the incoming class projects to be the third-largest class to ever enroll at the college. The incoming class represents 26 states, 27 countries and includes 53 international students, the most ever for a single incoming class. Among the class, 59% plan to join one of Coe’s 22 Division III athletic teams as student-athletes, also the highest number ever for a single class.

Coe College is top ten in the nation — and the only college or university ranked in Iowa — for Most Accessible Professors (No. 7 nationally) and Best Career Services (No. 8 nationally). The rankings were announced Tuesday by The Princeton Review as part of the publication’s annual review of the best colleges and universities across the country. Once again, Coe is recommended as one of the “Best 389 Colleges and Universities” by The Princeton Review.

It certainly seems like Faith Webb ’25 has always been on a path to spend time traveling the globe. She’s confident and adventurous. She knows about assimilating into a different country. She’s kept a diverse group of friends and has always held a strong interest in global cultures. If there was ever any doubt about her wandering the world, a Gilman award has erased it. Webb earned a highly competitive Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship sponsored by the United States Department of State toward the end of Spring Term. The scholarship enables students of limited financial means to study or intern abroad, and Webb has chosen to travel to South Korea in the fall of 2023.

After a national search, Coe College President David Hayes ’93 has appointed Mary Kathleen (Kayt) Conrad as Coe’s vice president of finance and administration. In this role, Conrad will join the college’s senior leadership team and be responsible for finances, business affairs, human resources, compliance, campus security and sustainability and other related duties.

Coe College is one of 17 recipients of a three-year grant to ensure transferring from a community college to a private college or university in Iowa will be transparent, cost-effective, and coordinated. The $350,000 grant was awarded by the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations and Teagle Foundation to the Iowa Private Transfer Collaborative (IPTC), a consortium of 17 Iowa nonprofit colleges and universities and two nonprofit organizations focused on Iowa higher education.

Nine Kohawk rhetoric students had their work published this past year.

Coe College joined 200 colleges and universities in the Campus Race to Zero Waste challenge with the National Wildlife Federation...and won second place for per capita recycling among small colleges!

A Coe College faculty member will be recognized with a national nursing award. The National Association of School Nurses (NASN) named Sharon Guthrie as the recipient of the organization's 2023 Distinguished Service Award.

Coe College Interim Provost and Dean of the Faculty Dr. Angela Ziskowski has been appointed provost. As the senior academic officer of the college, Ziskowski is responsible for guiding and shaping the academic experience and mission of Coe.

Coe College and Drake University have announced a new agreement that will allow students to earn both their bachelor’s degree in psychology from Coe and a master's of science in clinical mental health counseling, rehabilitation counseling or school counseling from Drake in just five years.

Coe College Joseph E. McCabe Professor of Religion and Director of Advising Meira Kensky is one of 10 faculty across Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) institutions to be designated as an inaugural Mellon Academic Leadership Fellow. Funded by a $1.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, the ACM Mellon Academic Leadership Fellows Program is meant to familiarize humanities faculty with academic leadership at the highest level through immersion in the workings of upper-level academic administration on their campus.

For the sixth consecutive year, Coe College has been named a top private college in the country for internships. The recognition comes from The Princeton Review, which also named Coe as one of the Best Value Colleges for 2023.

Kohawk quarterback Carter Maske '24 has had his own ups and downs on the field in his football career, but is using the lessons learning in perseverance and optimism to embrace this new and unfamiliar challenge. Maske has been selected as the next Coe intern working under Curt Menefee '87 at FOX sports in Los Angeles.

Art history and data science typically evoke opposite images. One of ornately framed canvases… the other an endless string of code and numbers. Westin Hansen '23 has minors in both art history and data science in addition to her business administration major at Coe. This past term, she leaned into all those areas as an intern with Goodman Taft in New York City.

Andrew George ’07, executive director for The Honda Classic, and Mimi Daoud ’23 will address Kohawk graduates as Coe College’s 2023 Commencement speakers.

Emma Lassen ’23 has been awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship for the 2023-24 academic year. A graduate of Cedar Rapids Jefferson High School, Lassen joins an elite group of nearly 30 Kohawks to receive Fulbrights in the past decade.

Coe was recognized as a Certified DOIT Institution by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education