This Friday, September 23, beginning at 5:30 p.m. in the Severance Great Hall, Carleton College will bring together local students, teachers, parents, and food activists to talk with each other and hear from keynote speaker Holly Lasanga of Bates College in a presentation titled "Weaving a Sustainable Food Web."

Carleton College cordially invites everyone to a special community open house celebrating the completion of the new Weitz Center for Creativity on Saturday, September 17, from 3 to 6 p.m. The event will feature tours of the building and its many unique spaces, as well as light refreshments and musical entertainment.

This Friday, the College will be working on a video project to document the move of various faculty and staff members to the Weitz Center for Creativity. This special project will block off College Street from 1st Street to 3rd Street from 1:30-3:30 p.m. and will include a gathering of participants on the Bald Spot during the afternoon as well.

Carleton College's Department of Academic Civic Engagement is now seeking submissions for a photo contest focused on images that depict the themes of celebrating community connections and learning beyond the classroom. The winning photographs will be featuring in an inaugural exhibit in September in the College's new Weitz Center for Creativity. Entitled "Community Engagement in Rice County," the exhibit will highlight the spirit of connecting the College with the greater community. Individuals can submit up to six images, which must be received by Monday, August 8, 2011. This contest is open to anyone in Northfield and greater Rice County. More information on the photo contest can be found here. (Note that the previously announced deadline for submissions has now been extended by one week).

Five Carleton students have been awarded a local organization's "Making a Difference" award for their volunteer efforts in the Northfield community. While many Carleton students are involved in local volunteer projects throughout the school year, these students were singled out by the Northfield Healthy Community Initiative (HCI) for their work with local high-school students. The HCI's monthly award celebrates groups and individuals in the community who have a positive influence on Northfield youth. The June award went to Annie Boucher, Sam Ellerbeck, Emily Schickli, Nick Welna, Becca Kilman, and Carrie Paulette.

Residents of Northfield and Dundas now have a centralized location on the internet to find transportation options locally and to connect to the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area, thanks in large part to the efforts of numerous Carleton College students and staff members. Go! Northfield is sponsored by the Northfield Grassroots Transit Initiative and Northfield.org, with several Carleton-affiliated contributors. Logan Nash ’11 (Knoxville, Tenn.) built the site, while Galen Kast ’11 (Wausau, Wis.) and Elizabeth Low ’11 (Excelsior, Minn.) designed the publicity campaign working under the wing of associate professor of psychology Mija M. Van Der Wege as part of a comps project on the marketing of environmental issues.

The Washington Times recently covered Carleton’s “Empty Bowls” event, which raises money and awareness regarding hunger relief. Writer Donna Rae Scheffert attended the event on Carleton’s campus and gave her impressions, noting that the six-year-old event has raised more than $26,000 to battle hunger in the Northfield community. Read the article on the Washington Times website.

Carleton director of the arts Steve Richardson gives a video update of the ongoing construction of the Weitz Center, including views of the theater, cinema, dance studio, video production studio, teaching museum, and the common area/coffee shop that looks out onto the park. Watch the video now.

Carleton has received a spot on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for 2010. The honor roll annually recognizes institutions of higher education for their commitment to and achievement in community service. The President’s Honor Roll increases the public’s awareness of the contributions that colleges and their students make to local communities and the nation as a whole. Carleton’s two main focal points of service comes through its Acting in the Community Together (ACT) Center, which focuses on volunteer efforts, and its Academic Civic Engagement (ACE) effort, an approach to education focusing on community-based learning, community-based research, and service learning.

Carleton College’s Acting in the Community Together (ACT) Center will hold its annual Lighten Up! Garage Sale from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, June 17, and 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday, June 18, in the West Gym on the Carleton campus. As in previous years, all profits from the popular sale will be split between the Northfield Union of Youth (The Key), Northfield Special Olympics, and Project Friendship. Through the collaborative efforts of the ACT Center, these three local organizations and community volunteers, the Lighten Up! Garage Sale has been a highly successful fundraiser that provides essential funds for these Northfield non-profits and champions “green” living.

Every year, summer is a busy time on the Carleton College campus as we continue our efforts to keep up with the basic maintenance of the buildings and grounds. Our focus remains on issues of basic structural integrity, addressing code and compliance, and improving safety and functionality.

 As I sit here thinking of the seemingly hundreds of things that I must complete over the next two weeks, I realize that I am losing sight of the bigger picture. There is very little that I have done lately that will be lasting. In ten years, my professors will possibly remember my name but no one will recall the thesis in my ten-page paper. Similarly, my surroundings have a sort of volatile sense to them. Even in my three years here at Carleton, three new buildings have been built/repurposed, houses have been torn down, sidewalks reconfigured, and so on. The general shape of campus stays the same (barring that the Cannon River doesn’t return to it’s paleo-valley on the football field) yet the structure is ever changing. New technology, new people, new ideas are constantly justification for the alteration of what exists.