Siri Hustvedt, an acclaimed author whose work has been read worldwide and translated into over thirty languages, will deliver Carleton College’s convocation address on Friday, Feb. 22 at 10:50 a.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel. Hustvedt’s talk, entitled “Reflections on Creativity: Memory, Imagination, Narrative and the Self,” will draw upon her study of psychoanalysis, philosophy and neuroscience in looking at how personal experience and memory become transformed into narrative. Convocation is free and open to the public. Convocations are also streamed live and can be viewed online at http://apps.carleton.edu/events/convocations/.

Literary power couple Siri Hustvedt and her husband Paul Auster will spend a three-day residency in Northfield Feb. 20-22. The residency will include faculty seminars at both Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges, as well as three public appearances. All events are free and open to the public.

Do you enjoy learning about the natural world?  If so, consider becoming a Minnesota Master Naturalist volunteer!

Carleton College and the Cannon River Watershed Partnership in Northfield are hosting a Minnesota Master Naturalist Volunteer Training beginning April 1 and running through May 15, 2013. Registration is now open and the class is expected to fill up quickly.

Carleton College’s Weitz Center for Creativity will host a special screening of “Cemetery Stories: A Rebel Missionary in South Africa,” a film directed by Carleton professor Cherif Keita, which explores an early effort at resistance to white authority in South Africa and its little-known connection with Northfield. The screening, part of the College’s Humanities Center’s Perspectives in Public Humanities series, will take place on Thursday, Feb. 7 beginning at 7 p.m. in the Weitz Center Cinema. This event is free and open to the public.

When she's not managing the College's campus energy and sustainability initiatives, Martha Larson is also an accomplished jazz cellist and vocalist. This month, Larson is bringing her musical talents to the Northfield community with an eclectic new music series: "Gypsy Jammin' - Django Style."

Carleton College professor of art David Lefkowitz, along with web content specialist Doug Bratland, have collaborated on a new exhibit opening at the Northfield Arts Guild. “NRTHFLD: The Nirthfolde Visitors' Bureau” opens Friday, January 11 with an opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. in the Arts Guild Gallery.

New stores have been popping up all around Northfield recently. Here is your guide to the newest store fronts.

Last Friday night, young couples stood along the walls of a hallway, laughing and chatting over the loud music coming from the gymnasium entrance at the seventh annual Northfield Harvest Stomp, a contra dance.

The Carleton College athletic department, coaches, and varsity student-athletes are pleased to announce the 14th Annual "Halloween 'KNIGHT'" Carnival to be held Sunday, Oct. 28 from 3 to 5 p.m. This year’s event will once again be held at Carleton’s Recreation Center.

In a recent editorial about the achievement gap in the StarTribune, Northfield's TORCH (Tackling Obstacle, Raising College Hopes) was given a shout-out. Carleton and TORCH have a long-standing partnership in this work. With the help of Carls and Oles, this organization has made it possible for students in Northfield to raise the Latino graduation rate from 36 percent in 2004 to 100 percent in this past year.

Read the full article on the StarTribune website.

Carleton College and the Northfield community will come together to bring old blackboards to life in a colorful and creative event on Saturday, Oct. 20 from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Weitz Center for Creativity. The “Chalk Slam” includes live music and refreshments and is free and open to the public. Humble blackboards, an essential feature of classrooms past, will come alive as students, professors, mathematicians, Minnesota artists, and community organizations draw, doodle, and calculate—creating temporary compositions that honor decades of learning by blackboard at the site of the former Northfield Middle School.  

Carleton students joined a group of about 250 people on Sep. 30 for the fifteenth annual Northfield CROP walk.