The Carletonian

“The presence of security at the Sayles Dance was effective in creating a more secure environment for students,” said Nadine Sunderland, assistant director of Student Activities.

The pursuit for Native American equality is still a constant struggle, according to last week’s Convocation speaker, Cherokee Native American judge Steve Russell. “[I]t is more difficult for our enemies to challenge and deny our sovereignty,” Russell said.

A sign from this year’s Arab Spring protests listed the tools of revolution, among them “machete” and “AK-47,” both crossed out. Presentations by Carleton professors last week discussed how this unlikely revolution occurred.

Every year, 90 percent of Northfielders are touched by services supported by the Northfield Area United Way. United Way is an international non-profit organization that raises money for community organizations such as literacy programs, housing, food shelves and many others.

Carleton’s faculty and Off-Campus Studies Office are preparing for a the upcoming study abroad programs this winter break, winter term, and spring term. These programs include two entirely new seminars: Society, Culture and Language in Peru and Linguistics and Culture in Kyoto, Japan.

If you think that Minnesota winters are frigid, try living in Antarctica for three years. Lawrence McKinley Gould, Carleton’s fourth president and former Geology professor, not only lived in Antarctica but also performed intensive field research and traveled deep into unchartered terrain to study the geology and ice formations of the land on a mission to the South Pole.

With a 67-21 majority, the Carleton faculty voted on Nov. 7 to pass changes to the S/Cr/NC policy that might reshape the way students approach selecting and taking courses at Carleton.

The atmosphere at Carleton’s annual commemoration of Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, on Nov. 2 was celebratory and inclusive.

The curtain finally closed for the Men’s soccer team last Saturday as they fell, 3-2, in a scintillating double overtime match against St. Olaf in the MIAC Playoff final. Despite two first-half goals and some solid goalkeeping by James Neher ’14, after 107 minutes of resilient defending, the Knights gave up the game-winning goal with three minutes left in overtime.

After an undefeated season and victories at both the Final Four Playoffs and the Western Regional, the Women’s Rubgy team heads to the National Tournament next week.

Last Thursday some superheroes flew over to St. Olaf to take on the Oles at the 4k distance.  Unfortunately, the sheer number of Oles overpowered the Carls, but they put up a brave fight and managed to save the damsels in distress. Colette Celichowski ’15 led the way, preventing the Oles from perfect scoring.  She was followed by Shannon Mueller ’12, ending her collegiate cross-country career with a great race. 

St. Olaf didn’t know what hit them until it was too late. Two grizzly runners in matching denim ran like they had just snuck into a Bruce Springsteen concert. Connor Jackson ‘15 conducted the pace in his train engineer’s uniform and fended off vicious Oles with his bike horn.

The 2011 MIAC Women’s Cross Country Awards were announced Thursday, with the Knights sweeping the individual honors after claiming the conference championship last Saturday. Senior standout Simone Childs-Walker (Seattle, Wash./Lakeside) was named MIAC Women’s Cross Country Most Valuable Athlete for her first-place finish at the MIAC Championships, while head coach Donna Ricks, was honored as MIAC Women’s Cross Country Coach-of-the-Year.

I really liked The Social Network. I know that might be a little unfashionable, but there’s a scene at the beginning where Jesse Eisenberg wanders home, alone, across the Harvard campus at night, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since I saw it.

In some of my discussions around incorporating game design into a liberal arts curriculum the fear of becoming a technical school begins to creep in. This fear is that having students produce video games will only prepare them for a life in the video game industry.  I truly understand the concern.

Rather than writing a finale about the intersection between small talk and identity, today I am turning to one of language’s foils: silence. In contrast with language’s impact on our personas, its absence reveals important facets of ourselves. While this concept alone could fill nine weeks of columns, it is worth highlighting briefly to complement my discussion of language.  

I’m going to let you in on a secret that will ease most of your pain: take nothing in your life too seriously. It sounds cliché, but the truth is, life is to be laughed over. Before I try to convince you of this, I would like to add, in a stipulation of sorts, if you can succeed in doing this, do tell me how.

Warning: this column will talk about frisbee. I’m sorry, I know you thought you would at least be able to escape it in the viewpoint section of the Carletonian. I promise it’s just a method to talk about something much less bland. Pete Kerns has this t-shirt that says “the way you do anything is the way you do anything”.

History class gets a bad rap.  For many, history was the useless subject they had to take in high school when they could have been taking more “valuable” courses in the hard sciences. They often look back in disdain, wondering why they were forced to learn about and form written syntheses on things that “just happened.”  Or, worse: they take history just because it fulfills a requirement.

The recent media frenzy surrounding the Penn State sexual assault case raises a lot of serious questions about personal values and college culture that even Carleton should keep in mind.

Week of Oct. 31  to Nov. 7, 2011

Carleton Orchestra Performs Fall Concert Nov. 11th

The Sustainability Revolving Fund is a pool of money available for funding student-proposed sustainability initiatives. The goal is to encourage and fund student sustainability initiatives.

Despite the looming marathon of late-nights and library sessions that inevitably come with finals, now that we’ve reached the end of ninth week, winter break is truly just around the corner. Most of the campus population will return home (hopefully to warmer climates).