It sounds like Lucile Lawrence’s Pathfinder Studies would work well, along with Salzedo’s Preludes for Beginners, Preludes Intimes and Short Stories. How about Beethoven’s Variations on a Swiss Air and Dewey Owens’s Irish Folksong arrangements?
Alwyn’s crepescule, Britten interlude, Tournier’s images or preludes? These are all pieces of a similar level to the Beethoven….I am also not a college instructor, but it is just an opinion…