Anyone walking anywhere between Sayles and the Library (and let's be honest that's basically everyone on campus) today is bound to know that today is Kate Malecek's birthday.  Who is Kate Malecek?  I don't know, but last night her friends went to town on the sidewalks with some chalk and now the whole campus knows it's her 21st birthday today.

I remember when I was looking at schools 4 years ago, chalking seemed to be prominent at a lot of schools.  It seemed like a very "college" thing to me at the time (in a good way), to be advertising using some childish medium like chalk on the sidewalk.  Since coming to Carleton, there definitely have been a few times when chalking's been seen on campus.  The other day someone did some chalking to advertise housing applications for Farm House.  The Admissions Office always makes sure they chalk during Accepted Student Days so that prospies can find their way around.  The first time my parents came to visit, my best friend was chalking to advertise a student group's fondue party later that afternoon.  And I wrote a blog post a while back about chalking to get people out to vote back in November.  Perhaps the most memorable chalking incident in the past few years (at least for me) was the day they revealed the results of the Campus Climate Survey by a group upset with the administration's handling of some issues of sexual assault.

I gave a tour this weekend and one of the parents asked us what sort of things we expected when coming here and how those were or were not fulfilled, and the chalking this morning made me think of that.  The anonymous chalking on the day of the Campus Climate Survey is the kind of chalking I was expecting the most when I came to Carleton.  I guess I was expecting a campus where students were voicing their opinions in this sort of anonymous, renegade manner (for some reason, I have this romanticized vision of activitists in the 60's chalking all over Berkelely and San Francisco and thought obviously liberal arts students today would do the same thing).  This really hasn't been the case.  Instead, I've found students are voicing their opinions much more vocally.  There's no need to hide behind chalking and secret messages when the campus is open to discussion already.  Sure, we aren't perfect, but I have never felt like an opinion I wanted to discuss could not be brought up with other students, faculty, staff, etc.  In terms of the sexual assault issue, many students were perturbed with the way the chalkers handled delivering their message, and new dialogues were opened around campus, some through established groups, some just spontaneously.  I definitely feel like any time something here has bothered me, I've been able to bring it up with people.  Last term I felt particularly strongly about an issue and was concerned with how the administration was handling something and got to meet with one of the deans just to talk about it.  The school is very open about things, and so I guess chalking is left for birthday messages.  Which is a good thing.  Cause otherwise I never would have known today was Kate's birthday.

But hey, it's spring!  And it feels great!  So here's some obligatory pictures of people outside.  They aren't great pictures (I've never claimed to be a skilled photographer), and I want to go enjoy the outside for myself, so you'll have to make due with not-so-great pictures, sorry.  Maybe I'll put up some better ones eventually.

Oh, and happy birthday, Kate!