Jonathan Capehart '89, a contributor for MSNBC and editorial writer at the Washington Post, appeared on "The Last Word" with Lawrence O'Donnell on Wednesday, April 27, discussing potential Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump's assertion that current President Barack Obama wasn't a "good student" during his time at Occidental College or at Columbia University. At the end of the segment, Capehart shares with the audience how Carleton gave him a chance as a student, allowing him to develop his skills. He is now a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, having won the award in 1999 for his 16-month editorial campaign to save the famed Apollo Theatre in Harlem when he worked for the New York Daily News.

Eric Nyquist, a 1994 Carleton graduate, was recently tabbed as one of the top 40 sports business professionals under the age of 40 by Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal. Nyquist tells SBJ how he wrote thousands of letters to executives in the sports industry, trying to break into the business. His persistence paid off when former Minnesota Vikings executive Roger Headrick recommended him for a NFL position, which later led to jobs with MLB's Chicago White Sox and now NASCAR.

A group of Carleton students traveled to the Lexington, Ky., area to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity during the College's spring break. The group worked on Lexington's first "green" building housing project, which received considerable local media attention. Local ABC affiliate WTVQ covered the project and featured the Carleton contingent, as did the Lexington Herald-Leader. There are also photos on the Lexington Habitat for Humanity Facebook page.

Kaaren Williamsen, director of Carleton's gender and sexuality center,has been quoted extensively on the recent National Survey on Family Growth study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The March 18 edition of the New York Times quoted Williamsen saying “It’s definitely a ‘huh’ situation, because it goes counter to popular perceptions,” as the study found that women with bachelor’s degrees were actually less likely to have had a same-sex experience than those who did not finish high school. She is quoted in the March 3 edition of USA Today as well, commenting that the study also found that fewer teens and young adults are having any sort of sexual contact with other people. "This data would support that it is more common for women to fluctuate and explore their sexuality. It's also more socially acceptable, so they feel like they could report it," she says in USA Today. "I do still think we have to consider the impact of internalized homophobia — that even for people who may have had a same-sex experience, admitting it, even anonymously, might not be possible. That could be impacting the difference (in study findings) between men and women." The story also appeared in another form in the DailyMail.

Cheryl Klein '00, a senior editor of Scholastic’s Arthur A. Levine Books whose most notable work came on the Harry Potter series, has released her own book, Second Sight: An Editor’s Talks on Writing, Revising, and Publishing Books for Children and Young Adults. She is interviewed by Publishers Weekly about her new release, which she self published, her motivations for getting into publishing and writing, and how her new book came to light. Klein was a convocation speaker at Carleton in April 2010.

Carleton alumnus and climber/photographer Jimmy Chin '96 is featured in the April issue of Outside magazine. The article details how Chin leads Camp 4 Collective, an independent production company that focuses on expedition coverage and marketing. According to author Mark Synnott, "Thanks to their unique combination of athletic talent and artistic sensibility, plus breakthroughs in digital technology, the trio can rapidly craft films as slick as anything coming from Madison Ave­nue—but with serious adventure cred."

Laura Clise '01 is the feature interview in the April 14 edition of the Washington Women's Weekly. Clise, the director of sustainable development and continuous improvement for AREVA, Inc., supports the continued integration of sustainable development into regional business strategy and coordinates sustainability reporting, climate change strategy, supplier diversity and stakeholder engagement for the region. AREVA is a global low-carbon energy generation company, whose products and services offer technological solutions that support the worldwide transition to a low-carbon economy. Clise is also a member of Carleton's alumni career board.

Toff, the famous "campus cat" who graced Carleton with his presence before passing away this past Sunday, is the subject of a short feature in the March 9 edition of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The story was picked up by the Associated Press and ran in many publications nationwide. "He was quite a character. He was very self-possessed. He knew exactly what he wanted," Roger Paas, the William H. Laird Professor of German and the Liberal Arts, chair of German and Russian, and more importantly, Toff's owner, along with Wadsworth A. Williams Professor of Economics Martha Paas, told the paper. Roger and Martha Paas also granted an interview to KARE-11 TV, the NBC affiliate in Minneapolis/Saint Paul, and the story also interviewed Kelsey Parsons '13 (Golden Valley, Minn.) and ran on the 6 o'clock newscast on March 10. You can also visit Toff's Facebook page. Toff died of cancer on Sunday, March 6, just a little less than a month shy of his 15th birthday.

Minnesota Public Radio higher education reporter Alec Friedrich noted how Carleton librarians use trading cards to break through the awkwardness that often stop students from utilizing their expertise in his blog, On Campus, on March 1. Matt Bailey, media librarian and reference and instruction librarian for arts, told Friedrich “They [cards] offer us a way to be accessible and approachable to students. The library can be an intimidating place … We want something that’s not threatening, that makes us approachable so that students can ask questions.”

One of Carleton's newest student clubs, the Carleton Claymation Club, had one of its videos featured by the Star Tribune blog, Campus Connect, which is maintained by higher education beat reporter Jenna Ross. The video was entered in Carleton's student film competition, The Golden Schillers.The video is a dream sequence involving rabbits and carrots. One of the club's leaders, Julio Rodriguez '11 (Quito, Ecuador) told Ross that it is "one of the more creative clubs on campus. I like the fact that you can make a movie even though you don't really have actors or even a video camera."

As part of a bet, Carleton student Corey Fauver '12 (Chatham, N.J.) grew a beard for six weeks. He took a photo pretty much every day of his facial-hair growth, and he ended up growing the beard for a full year and turning the photos into a time-lapse video that has gone viral on YouTube, generating nearly half a million views. The posting has been featured on such websites as SI.com's Extra Mustard blog, msnbc.com, KARE11.com, MidwestSportsFans.com, and CityPages.com, to name only a few. The video took second place in Carleton's 2011 Golden Schiller Awards, a student movie-making competition.

Carleton's financial-aid program, which meets the needs of its students at 100 percent, was recently cited by the CBSMoneyWatch.com's blog, "The College Solution," as having one of the top financial-aid programs in the country. Carleton, along with 62 other institutions, were tabbed for fulling meeting students' needs. Writer Lynn O'Shaunessey writes: "In fact, according to a new U.S. News & World Report survey, only 63 schools out of 1,700 colleges and universities claim that they meet their students’ full financial need. You can see the U.S. News story here: Which College Claim to Meet Students’ Full Financial Need?