Members of the Northfield community will come together to discuss the educational achievement gap in local schools in a “Who is Northfield?” panel discussion taking place on Thursday, Feb. 2 at 12 p.m. in Carleton College’s Severance Great Hall. This event, which includes a complimentary buffet lunch, is free and open to the public.

The Jan. 24 edition of the Northfield News covered a neat collaboration between William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology Neil Lutsky's class and Northfield Middle School students around the new Perlman Teaching Museum's exhibit, "Running the Numbers" by photographer Chris Jordan. “What they did was, they sat with their Carleton student and brainstormed about big numbers that had some relevance to their lives,” said John Bade, NMS art teacher. Bade had about 65 students participate in the art project, divided into 17 groups with one Carleton student assigned to each group. Lutsky’s students were responsible for trying to find a way to represent the large statistics they had found. “They liked having that college student in the classroom,” Bade said. “And the kids Neil (Lutsky) brought over were very engaging.”

The Chronicle of Higher Education's Scott Carlson wrote a feature titled "In an Old School Building, Carleton College and Its Community Enjoy New Lessons" for the publication's Jan. 21 edition. Carlson tells the history of the building, how the College purchased and planned the renovation, shows how many of the old spaces morphed into the new and how Carleton used many of the old parts of the building in interesting and creative ways. The article includes an online slide show as well.

Carleton is pleased to announce an exciting partnership with neighboring St. Olaf College and the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation (NDDC). In conjunction with the NDDC's College-Community Collaboration Committee, plans are now in place to launch and support a multi-year, interdisciplinary series of college-community projects.  

In this edition of "Getting to Know," media relations student writer Anna Versen '14 (Minnetonka, Minn.) sat down with Sameena Ahmed '12 (Savage, Minn.), who is extremely active in volunteering for a number of community organizations through Carleton's Acting in the Community Together (ACT) office.

Laurel Bradley, director and curator in the Perlman Teaching Museum and senior lecturer in art and art History, gives us a tour of the Weitz Center for Creativity's museum space. She talks about exactly what it means for Carleton to have such a facility and gives us a sneak preview of the two winter term exhibits. “A Complex Weave: Women and Identity in Contemporary Art” is on display in the museum’s Braucher Gallery through March 11, while the Kaemmer Family Gallery hosts “Running the Numbers: Portraits of Mass Consumption" at the same time.

Carleton College has announced the formation of a new Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE), combining the efforts of the College’s Academic Civic Engagement (ACE) and Acting in the Community Together (ACT) offices, while adding a third area of public scholarship to bring increased visibility to collaborations between faculty and students, and to support the work of engaged scholarship by Carleton’s faculty. The new effort will be launched with an open house on Friday, Jan. 20, from 10 a.m.-12 noon, at the Sayles-Hill Student Center, room 150. Carleton President Steven G. Poskanzer and Dean of the College Beverly Nagel will offer remarks at 11:15 a.m.

Northfield Middle School art teacher John Bade and his students will join Carleton College psychology professor Neil Lutsky and his students to present the results of their recent collaborative art project entitled “Northfield Runs the Numbers” on Tuesday, Jan. 17 from 7 to 9 p.m. The presentation and reception, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Erling O. and Geneva E. Johnson Room in the Carleton College Weitz Center for Creativity.

In mid-December, college representatives Fred Rogers and Alan Norton from Carleton and St. Olaf, respectively, presented city of Northfield officials mayor Mary Rossing and city administrator Tim Madigan with the colleges' annual donation to its host city. Each college gave $75,000 to Northfield, continuing a long-standing and unique tradition.

Carleton College’s annual holiday Craft and Custodial Bake Sale will take place on Friday, December 2 from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Commons of the Weitz Center for Creativity. A wide variety of hand-crafted items and baked goods will be available for purchase, ranging from jewelry, afghans, baskets, outerwear, candles, and much more. Vendors will donate a portion of the proceeds from their sales to the Carleton College Custodial Scholarship Fund. This popular annual event is free and open to the public. 

We caught up with Donald Hasseltine, Carleton’s new vice president for external relations. Hired in mid-August of this year, Don started his new position on November 7. Learn about his background, why he and has family chose to relocate to Northfield and Carleton, and his early impressions of his new community.

On Saturday, Nov. 5, approximately 25 Carleton and local high-school students gathered for an all-day Youth Empowerment Workshop, led by Carleton students Mahal Burr '12 and Nick Welna '12 (Evanston, Ill.) at the Weitz Center for Creativity. Sponsored by the Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE) office, the workshop taught attendees a wide variety of leadership skills and capped with the formation of working groups to futher examine issues facing young people in our community.