Destini Ross; Associate Director of the Arts, Media & Communications Career Community
Resumés, cover letters, and interviewing practice are expected materials for internship and job applications. If you’re applying to graduate school, this docket will expand to include a CV, statement of purpose, diversity statement, and perhaps a teaching philosophy.
For those in research-based or creative fields, a portfolio website might be the most important personal marketing material. When I arrived on campus and began working with creative Grinnellians in Fall 2024, website development emerged as a career development priority in conversations with students and faculty members alike.
For artists, musicians, filmmakers or others whose work takes a form beyond the written word, a portfolio website is an opportunity to narrate the interconnections and broader themes of their work—whether that work is created for class, a student organization, civic engagement project, or independently.
This theme of interconnection is central to a new collaborative workshop series facilitated by the Arts, Media & Communications Career Community in the CLS and taught by Tierney Steelberg and Dr. Mo Pelzel of the Digital Liberal Arts Collaborative (DLAC). Spring 2025 marked the inaugural run of Humanities Portfolio Website Workshops; an invitation for students across disciplines to learn the basics of web hosting and customization on the Sites@Grinnell platform, as well as strategies for thinking like a selection committee.
DLAC supports faculty, staff, and students as they integrate digital methods and practices into their research and scholarly work. At the heart of their ethos is accessibility, increased interdisciplinary information sharing, and effective pedagogical strategies. This is to say, supporting student engagement with digital resources available on Grinnell’s campus is central to their mission.
Over a series of three meetings, a core group of 20 students representing 14 majors and concentrations across all four class years gathered to learn best practices for sharing their work online. Scaffolded demonstrations covered back-end site management, adding content, design, accessibility, avoiding AI scrapers, and considering one’s target audience.
When asked to reflect on his teaching priorities for the series, Dr. Mo Pelzel, Director of Academic Technology, noted that he wanted students to “reflect upon the knowledge they have created, make connections among different projects, courses, and ideas, and present their creative works to audiences of interest. By curating and narrating their best work, students deepen their own learning while also inviting response, engagement, and new opportunities for collaboration.”
Tierney Steelberg, Digital Liberal Arts Specialist, echoed these sentiments, sharing that she prioritizes “…ensuring that students reflect on why they are here and what they want to accomplish and providing students with ample time for hands-on experimentation, in a space that is open to questions and to their sharing and learning with and from each other.”
Working with Tierney and Mo, a first-time collaboration between DLAC and the CLS, was a welcome example of mutual alignment across offices and a reflection of my own priorities for the Arts, Media & Communications Career Community. Making one’s work public and preparing for a competitive field is inherently vulnerable—the Humanities Portfolio Website Workshops act as a community-building exercise in mutual learning and trust. When we learn together, we grow together, and those ripple effects are felt far into the future.
Tierney continued by noting that, “we’ve [DLAC] already noticed students incorporating what they learned in the workshop into other spheres of their campus life, which we always love to see.”
Humanities Portfolio Website Workshops will be offered again semesterly in the 2025-2026 academic year and are open to students of any major or class year. The series emphasis is on creating a visual portfolio that is not appropriate for all industries.
If you want to begin your own Sites@Grinnell portfolio in advance of the Fall 2025 sessions, learn more at: Sites at Grinnell College
You can view current Grinnell College Sites@Grinnell websites here: Community Gallery – A community gallery of Sites @ Grinnell websites
If you’re building a creative career, please schedule a meeting with me via Handshake. I look forward to working with you!
Thank you, Tierney and Mo, for your spirited leadership and expertise. Thank you to Vivero Fellows Emma Kumano-Maloney ’25, Chloe Kelly ’26, Regann Fishell ’27 for your dedicated, responsive technical support.
