Carleton professor of French Cherif Keita appeared on Al Jazeera English's "The Stream" on April 11, speaking about the coup in his native Mali and the uprising in the northern part of the country. Keita has led Carleton's Francophone Studies off-campus program to Mali since 2000, leading seven total sessions for 144 students in that time. The most recent session occurred in the fall of 2011. On March 21, disgruntled army soldiers overthrew President Amadou Toumani Touré and dissolved the constitution. A rebellion in northern Mali is led by the MNLA (National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad). MNLA members are from various ethnic groups but are primarily Tuareg or Kel Tamasheq, meaning speakers of the Tamasheq language.

The March 22nd edition of Yahoo! News told the inspiring story of Watson Fellowship winner, Matthew Fink ’11. Fink, a passionate Starcraft II gamer, is traveling around the world to investigate the disabled gaming community and encourage children to find hobbies they are passionate about despite their disabilities. As an infant, Fink required all four of his limbs to be amputated after a severe spleen infection. Fink’s Watson Fellowship grant is worth $25,000. In an outpouring of support, the Starcraft II community has banded together to host a global fundraising tournament to aid in Fink’s efforts. The tournament will include 16 separate events worldwide and feature world-class players from the U.S., U.K., Germany, Spain, France, Korea, and Japan.

Carleton graduate Sara Lopez '09 is featured in a Southwest Minneapolis Patch article about her work to help the Latino community connect more comfortably with technology, primarily through the use of personal computers. She is a teacher with the Latino Economic Development Center and heads a class that helps members of the Latino community understand the basics of personal computing, which aids them in finding jobs, working in their current jobs or understand their children's schoolwork.

Carleton senior mathematics and physics major Michael Coughlin (Burnsville, Minn.) recently earned a prestigious Churchill Scholarship to study next year at Cambridge University in England, and the award garnered recognition from the local press. The Pioneer Press ran a feature on Coughlin on March 4, while the Burnsville newspaper This Week Live also profiled Coughlin on February 9. Finally, the Sunday, March 11 Star Tribune south metro edition profiled him as well.

Associate professor of cinema and media studies Carol Donelan’s recent book, Electric Theater: The Emergence of Cinema in Northfield, was featured in the Feb. 25 edition of the Northfield News. The book, the third in a Northfield Historical Society series, examines the link between the Northfield’s first taste of cinema with broader cultural movements taking place at the time, such as changes in economics, architecture, and religion. Donelan states that the emergence of cinema in Northfield allowed residents “to experience people and places beyond what was readily available to them and to negotiate who they were and who they wanted to be.” Her book is now on sale at Northfield Historical Society and the Carleton Bookstore.

Chris Kettenman ’07 recently spoke with Yahoo Finance about his predictions of growth in the solar energy industry. Kettenmann, a primary alternative energy analyst at Miller Tabak, discussed the current expansion of the industry in both domestic and foreign markets. In 2011, with the aid of federal tax credits, the U.S. market for solar energy saw an increase of 100 percent. “With these tax credits still in place, I think there's still a meaningful appetite for solar in the U.S.” If industries continue to focus on innovation, Kettenmann believes solar parity could be reached as early as 2015.

Jose Ferreira ’90 was recently featured in the Feb. 22 edition of Forbes Magazine for his innovative software technology. Ferreira runs Knewton, a company that builds its software into online classes to watch the way students learn. The software tracks the students every move including speed, scores, accuracy, and delays. The program then adapts to the students to help them learn based on their personal learning style. In 2011, Ferreira signed a deal with Pearson that plans to convert a whole shelf of Pearson test-prep material into the adaptive format. Rough estimates suggest that within four years revenue could surpass $100 million dollars. “Online education,” says Ferreira, “is on the cusp of massive change.”

Michael Hasenstab '95 was interviewed on National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition" for a segment that aired on February 18 regarding his company's recent investment in Ireland.  Hasenstab's group, Templeton Investments, recently invested billions of dollars in the Irish government bond market. "We always take a long-term perspective on any of our investments. We're looking for the right policy mix. We're looking for good long-term economic fundamentals," he said. "But then the question really was: What approach does Ireland take? Is it denial and procrastination? Or was it really tackling the problems head-on? And that Ireland's case, they really tackled it head on. They accepted significant declines in real wages, which had huge social consequence and costs and not something easy to do. But as a result of those large declines, they regained competitiveness, started to boost exports and began to grow again."

Steven Schier, the Dorothy H. and Edward C. Congdon Professor of Political Science, told USA Today on Feb. 8 that the recent low Republican turnout threatens the candidacy of Mitt Romney and is due to voter apathy towards the party's field. "Republicans are upset with their field," Schier said. "If you look at national polls, a large percentage would like other candidates. It's too late for that and many are stuck with unappealing choices. That produces low turnout and that's a real threat to Romney."

Fay Vincent, former commissioner of Major League Baseball and a Board of Trustee member at Carleton College, penned a Feb. 1 opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) titled "Price Controls for Harvard." In the piece, Vincent lays out the myriad of problems associated with implementing tuition price caps in American higher education, including merit vs. need-based financial aid, schools with large vs. small endowments, and the cost borne by the U.S. government to implement such a program will be passed along to students and families.

Jonathan Zimmer, a New York University faculty member, penned a Jan. 31 article for the Los Angeles Times, "Are college students learning?" The opinion piece, in response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech, called upon American higher education to use assessment better and more regularly to prove students are actually learning. Zimmerman pointed out Carleton's Writing Portfolio requirement: "At Carleton College in Minnesota, for example, students are required to submit a set of papers that they wrote during their first two years at the school. Carleton then assesses each student according to a set of faculty-developed standards, and also provides assistance to the students who do not meet them."

The Jan. 20, 2012, broadcast of KYMN (1080 AM) Radio's "Art Zany! Radio for the Imagination" featured special guest Laurel Bradley, Director and Curator of the Perlman Teaching Museum 
and Senior Lecturer in Art and Art History, talking about the current art exhibit “A Complex Weave: Women and Identity in Contemporary Art.” Bradley was joined by Martin Rosenberg, co-curator of the exhibition and Professor of Art History at Rutgers University. On display, through March 11, 2012, “A Complex Weave” reveals the ongoing vitality of the Feminist artist movement with works by contemporary women artists of varied backgrounds exploring aspects of identity through painting, drawing, needlework, photography and other media.