Nat Turner '93 is featured in the Jan. 15 edition of the New York Times regarding his new venture, a combination of a school and urban farm. The project is a cross between a G.E.D. academy and farm academy, selling the produce it grows at a local farmer's market and to high-end New Orleans restaurants. It uses the business to help teach the high-school students about marketing, math and other related topics while expanding its curriculum into the area around the school and using current events and issues as a teaching tool.

Carleton's newly-constructed Cassat and Memorial Halls are part of a feature on college and university sustainable building practices in the January/February 2011 edition of Architecture Minnesota magazine. The article, not available online, highlights how Carleton achieved LEED Gold building standards on its $25 million project. The residence halls are the first newly-constructed college or university residence halls in the state of Minnesota to achieve the LEED Gold standard.

In an article entitled "Best Intentions" in the current edition of Redoux Home Magazine, Carleton President Steven Poskanzer shares his New Year's "intention" -- a new approach to the traditional New Year's resolution. Poskanzer says he hopes to "strike a healthy balance between immersion in a new job and community, and the 'rest of life.'"

Steven Schier, the Dorothy H. and Edward C. Congdon Professor of Political Science, said in a January 7 interview with Minnesota Public Radio that former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty's new book, "Courage to Stand: an American Story," leaves little doubt as to his intentions regarding the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 2012. "I think the content of his memoirs indicate that he is running for president," Schier said in his interview with MPR's Mark Zdechlik on Morning Edition. "If you're writing a memoir and attacking an incumbent president consistently in that memoir, it's pretty clear that you're sort of honing and introducing campaign messages you plan to use on the stump during an election year."

Carleton's study-abroad class, "Studio Arts in the South Pacific," is the subject of a feature story in the Cook Islands Herald. Hagstrom gave an extensive interview to the newspaper about the class and why he chose to stop in the Cook Islands before moving along to New Zealand and Australia for the rest of the program. "It’s a little bit nice to skip a cold Minnesota winter and come to a place like this, but the whole point is to see things that are really different from where we normally live. Starting in Rarotonga is just perfect for that,” Hagstrom says in the article. “A lot of the way art is taught in the States is devoid of any context of nature. I wanted to make a class that was different. There are a lot of classes that go to Europe and go to the great museums – I wanted to make a class that was nature-based.” More information on the program can be found on Carleton's off-campus studies' website.

Steven Schier, the Dorothy H. and Edward C. Congdon Professor of Political Science, was quoted in a Jan. 2 article by Reuters about how the changing of the national political landscape might impact the reelection efforts of current U.S. President Barack Obama. "The political climate is about to completely change for Obama, and how those budget and healthcare battles play out will really determine his status for the race in 2012,"Schier said.

Carleton's holiday card from President Steven G. Poskanzer was highlighted by the blog College Explorations as one of the best of the holiday season. "This is snow like you’ve never seen snow before, shown through a series of amazing photos taken by current students and supported by a wonderful performance of the Carleton College Singers," the blog states. If you missed the holiday card, it's still available via the president's website.

Carleton's $40 million renovation of the former Northfield Middle/High School into its Arts Union facility, along with two other large-scale Northfield construction projects, was mentioned in the Dec. 21 edition of the Star Tribune. The three projects--Carleton's Arts Union, St. Olaf College's $22 million renovation of the newly-named Thomson Hall, and the Mayo Clinic's $10 million oncology clinic--have boosted the construction businesses in the area. Northfield Mayor Mary Rossing said the college building renovations are significant "economically and historically in our town." St. Olaf, with 805 employees, and Carleton, with 650, are the city's second- and third-largest employers after Malt-O-Meal, she noted.

Minnesota Public Radio's On Campus blog posted an entry on Dec. 7 entitled "College Essays That Work," and featured the essay of Evan Summers '14. His essays starts out recalling another loss by his favorite team, Major League Baseball's Kansas City Royals. “That ball is hit well. It goes back, deep, gone! Another home run for Chicago, and the Royals trail by eight.” I am accustomed to listening to Denny Mathews, the long time voice of the Kansas City Royals, make these types of calls on hot, steamy evenings in the middle of July. Denny, a rare survivor, has actually seen a winning and successful Kansas City Royals team. To be honest, I am not sure I even believe the stories about the Royals’ once perpetual success. Sure there is plenty of evidence, but it is just so hard for me to imagine a championship in my hometown.

Professor of psychology Julie Neiworth is featured in a recent broadcast of the public radio program "Are We Alone," produced by the SETI Institute. In an episode entitled "Aware Am I," about animal awareness and language, Neiworth discusses her observations about the recent Hauser debacle at Harvard University and the effect of it on the field of animal cognition and psychology. A podcast of the broadcast can be found here. Focused on human cravings and desire, "Aware Am I" also features discussions with Yale University psychologist and author Paul Bloom, Duke University scientist and author Vanessa Woods, and University of Chicago bacterial geneticist Jim Shapiro.

President Steven G. Poskanzer is the subject of a Chronicle of Higher Education feature on Nov. 28 about his interactions with students around the Carleton tradition of the bust of German poet Friedrich Schiller. The bust, which has been making appearances at important Carleton events for nearly 60 years and is guarded by a secret group of students, was given to the new Carleton president, and Poskanzer took a series of photos of him with Schiller that ran in the campus literary magazine The Carl and appeared on Carleton's Facebook page. "It was important for me, as a brand new president," he says of the shenanigans, "to show that I was an accessible, approachable person." (Please note the link will only be available to non-subscribers until Dec. 3.)

Raúl Raymundo '87, co-founder and the CEO of the 20-year-old Resurrection Project, has been named to the top 40 pioneers from Chicago from 1970-2010 by Chicago Magazine. Raymundo used money from six local Catholic churches to build an organization that revitalized the Pilsen, Little Village, and Back of the Yard neighborhoods.