Academic initiatives are given special focus and resources by the College, and often involve multiple academic departments and support staff. Some are grant funded.

• Academic Civic Engagement
• Carleton Interdisplinary Science & Math Initiative (CISMI)
• Global Engagement Initiative
• The Humanities Center at Carleton
• Quantitative Inquiry, Reasoning, and Knowledge (QUIRK) Initiative
• Gulf Coast Gateway
• Spatial Analysis
• Viz: Visualizing the Liberal Arts