Heather Stimmler ’97 was walking her dogs through the streets of Paris and listening on her smartphone to Mikaela Schmitt-Harsh speak on “The Vulnerability and Resilience of Coffee Growers to Seasonal Food Insecurity.” Meanwhile, Daniella De Franco ’09 was tuning in to the same lecture from Nicaragua, where she works with TechnoServe, a nonprofit that is helping coffee growers boost their income by catering to the specialty coffee market.

A postdoctoral fellow in environmental studies, Schmitt-Harsh was the featured speaker for that day’s episode of Carleton Connects, a webinar program put on by the alumni relations office for anyone who seeks the intellectual stimulation of a college lecture. Each month during the academic year, a Carleton faculty member or alumnus gives an online presentation for alumni, parents, and others, who log in from around the world to listen or to participate by asking questions and posting comments.

Following a pilot program in 2011, the program was launched officially in 2012, when 50 alumni from eight countries listened to political science professor Roy Grow speak on American foreign policy in North Korea and Iran. The hour-long program has evolved from a conference-call format to a webinar. Other talks have included physics and astronomy professor Cindy Blaha on visual astronomy, history professor Bill North on papal abdication from a medieval perspective, and political science professor Steve Schier and Washington Post opinion writer Jonathan Capehart ’89 on the political climate in Washington, D.C. So far, nearly 900 people from 19 countries have participated in 20 presentations.

“People from all over the world access our live webinars,” says Catie Gardner ’10, an assistant director of alumni relations who plans and facilitates the program. “It may be 3:00 a.m. for them, but they join us because they’re so excited to relive the Carleton classroom experience.”

Most of the talks have been archived and are available online at go.carleton.edu/carletonconnects.