The Carletonian

On March 1, the New York Times printed an article titled “More College Graduates Take Public Service Jobs.” The article followed a 2009 college graduate with a business degree as she embarked on a public service job after college.

The fundamental problem with the Carletonian is that it has stayed the same for years and years and years. This year, we’re trying to change that. We’re doing what hasn’t been done in at least fifty years: making the paper better.

When Justin Bieber burst through the collective womb of Usher and YouTube onto the pop scene, we fell deeply in love with him. Then, this week, all that changed.

Last Monday, every lounge across campus was full of students watching the BCS championship game. It was an emotional roller coaster to watch for any football fan, regardless of loyalties. But for those of us who are die-hard Oregon fans, it was the capstone on what has been a tumultuous couple of years. What Carleton, and the rest of the country, saw on Monday was only part of the story. Oregon coach Chip Kelly has done a remarkable job of filling Autzen Stadium for the past two seasons, so performance clearly isn’t the problem. It’s the off-field catastrophes that have had the small town of Eugene, Ore., enraged at our normally deeply beloved Ducks.

The great thing about working for the Carletonian is that we always have a couch to nap on in Sayles. Too many freshmen in the Great Space? No problem, we've got an office right upstairs where we can Facebook and eat our tacos in peace. Over the summer, our office was renovated and Student Activities scored us a sweet couch. It's large and green and comfortable and we love it.

Wyclef Jean took up a visiting professor post at Brown University this year and it got us thinking. What if we had celebrities teaching at Carleton?

Seeing as how it is the end of term, although very few people on this campus will admit it, many are worried about what their grades for the term will be. But enough about how much grades suck. Since we are always getting evaluated, The Carletonian has decided to return the favor this week as we grade some offices around campus.

Last year, at the start of Senior Week, President Oden wrote an email to the senior class. In this email he said he would return the iPod that “gave voice” to R2D2, no questions asked, as long there was 50% participation in the Senior Class Gift to the college. The seniors response: when they accepted their diplomas from Oden, they dropped coins on his podium with the last person giving Oden a piggy bank. This method of contributing to the class gift was in good humor, and still gave students the choice to give. Unfortunately this is not always the case at institutions of higher education.

We, as a campus, owe a lot of people a lot of thanks. For a while now, Carleton has recognized that while there are many things we do well, there are some that we need to improve upon. This fall, one of those much needed improvements has been realized. It is the revamped, redone, ridiculously better sexual misconduct policy and procedure.

October 1st marked the beginning of National Sudden Cardiac Awareness Month, and Carleton recognized this day probably the same way most colleges across the country did—by doing nothing. After all, we fit young college students have no reason to worry about long-term health problems like heart disease. It turns out that’s wrong, as new studies are beginning to suggest.

Once upon a time, The Carletonian had a “Raiders of the Lost Archives” where the college archivist wrote in about some obscure event or tradition that occurred in Carleton’s past, but as many “traditions” on this campus, that column has come and gone. But the value of those columns still remain, and they can be looked up, just like everything else published by The Carletonian, through the Archives website.

In the past several days, the media has been dominated by coverage of the cyberbullying-related suicide. Ellen Degeneres’ plea, “I can’t stay silent about this,” has been circulating the Internet rapidly, and people are reacting.