The Carletonian

Carleton College ranks 20th in the number of Peace Corps volunteers for 2008, as the College produced 15 alumni volunteers last year to push its cumulative alumni Peace Corps volunteer number past the 500 mark.

Carleton’s residential office, better known as Res Life, released the lottery numbers for the 2009-2010 academic year earlier last week along with the statement that only a hundred rising seniors would get the chance of getting Northfield Option.

Long disparaged as lowbrow and unworthy of critical attention, melodrama receives a fresh look from curators Carol Donelan, professor of cinema and media studies, and Laurel Bradley, director of exhibitions, with input from students enrolled in a course taught fall term at Carleton, “The Melodramatic Imagination.” Rooted in cheap stage shows, circus spectacles and sentimental literature, melodrama matured as a cinematic genre in the early twentieth century.

A favorable vote from the Northfield City Council last Monday may help Carleton take the lead in its sustainability arms race with St. Olaf College. Pending funding and further approval from the city, a second Carleton wind turbine - smaller, cheaper and closer to campus than the existing one - may start spinning by the end of the year.

Carleton Director of Energy Management Robert Lamppa has been working on the details of the new project for the last two years. He envisions a 1 megawatt unit that would cost between $2 and $2.5 million.

The employees of Carleton College’s Dining Services are, to put it simply, not happy. Smith, a Carleton Food Service employee of over 10 years, says she no longer looks forward to coming in to work. “I enjoy being with the students,” she says. “Sometimes it’s just frustrating to come to work. It’s just rush, rush, rush.”

Food For Thought is a student-run initiative at Carleton whose members spent Fall Term collecting data and statistics on the food that students waste at Carleton. They found that Burton and LDC together throw away 13,462 pounds of food during a 5-day working week. This translates to $3,375 a week. This also means a large cost for disposal and environmental degradation.

The last of the Campus Climate workshops, held on Wednesday, January 28, focused on improving campus climate mainly in classrooms. Joe Baggot, Dean of Student Affairs, was the chair of the Campus Climate workshop committee and described the experience of being in the committee as both joyous and deeply irritating.

The symposium is the brainchild of Samuel Robson, a junior history major. When Robson came back from his Off Campus studies program from Nicaragua, he wanted to share what he had learned from living there about Nicaragua’s awkward foreign relations with the United States.

Is there something about chili that makes people think deeply about relationships and their connections to personal backgrounds? The Office of Intercultural Life (OIL) was hoping that this would be the case last Wednesday night when it held its first Chili Night of the new year.

The complaints about “noises in the walls” of Burton began at the end of last term.

“It has bothered my residents...noises of creatures in the wall. When they reported it to facilities they...said that contrary to popular belief it is not rats but pigeons and squirrels,” said Emily Fritz-Endres, a 4th Burton RA.

The city of Northfield once again received a belated holiday gift from its two liberal arts colleges earlier this month. Carleton and St. Olaf each presented a check of $73,000 to the city’s general fund, totaling $146,000. The two schools make the donation in order to thank the city for all of its services that the colleges use.

Sen. Kevin Dahle will hold a series of town hall meetings February 7.
He invites residents to hear about 2009 legislative session, share input, concerns and ideas.