Carleton College has recently started sponsoring scholar programs for its students to have off-campus experiences during the College’s winter-term break during the month of December. This past month, Carleton held a trio of programs: a public policy program based in Washington, D.C., a business/finance experience in New York City, and finally a creative arts encounter in New York City. This marks the third school year Carleton has sponsored such experiences for its students. Student bloggers Aaron Kaufman ’09 (creative arts) and Alex Sciuto ’09 (public policy) recently posted some thoughts and reflections on their experiences.

In this week's installment of our new "Photo Feature" segment, we have photos of the convocation by the inventor of Rollarblades, the Carleton Trustee dinner where George Cassat '46 was honored for his incredible support of Carleton, and the jazz concert.

This week at Carleton, our student photographers captured images from the football team's exhilirating win over nationally-ranked Augsburg for Homecoming, "A Solider's Tale" musical performance and the weekly convocation series given by Joseph Melrose, who served three decades in the Foreign Service, including a stint as the U.S. Ambassador to Sierra Leone.

A new feature offered by the Carleton Media Relations staff and our student photographers is the "Week in Pictures." We'll have our student photographers shoot various campus events, scenes and every day life and create a weekly photo gallery for your enjoyment. This week, our students captured images from a faculty music recital, a performance of the Illiad and a fall festival.

On Friday, Sept. 19, the musical project "Africa to Appalachia" played at Carleton College after an invitation from professor of French Cherif Keita. Led by the award-winning Canadian banjo player Jayme Stone and Quebec-based Malian Kora player Mansa Sissoko, the group was scheduled to play locally and Keita convinced them to play in Carleton’s Great Space on short notice. We have some great photos of the event taken by Nate Ryan '10.

Katie Blanchard, a rising Carleton senior, remained on her college campus this summer rather than working at an internship or other summer job. While she’s hardly alone in this experience, Blanchard can literally eat the fruits (or vegetables) of her labor at the end of each day, as the Petoskey, Mich., native has been working not in a laboratory researching or in the library digging through old texts, but cultivating and expanding the Carleton garden. The garden, located on the northeastern edge of campus and north of the Recreation Center, is only one of many new sustainability projects the College has undertaken in the past school year.

When Carleton students return to campus after studying, volunteering, or interning abroad, they bring with them a wealth of new ideas and perspectives, contributing to the rich intellectual climate and adding small but essential drops to the bucket of intercultural understanding. Photography is a unique tool for sharing their experiences because it provides viewers with an immediate glimpse of a different world. The images produced by the 2008 Off-Campus Studies photo contest winners span tradition and modernity, are both serene and provoking, and constitute manifestations of a different perspective.

In keeping with Carleton’s commitment to sustainability, the College’s Fleet Vehicle Services division recently added two new Toyota Priuses to its roster of automobiles. The first mass-produced hybrid vehicle on the market, the Prius is considered the most fuel-efficient car currently sold in the United States.

Of the forty-two girls on the roster for the Carleton Women’s Rugby Football Club, almost all of them awoke at 5 a.m. on Saturday, April 26, to high winds and a building snowstorm—anticipating the worst at their upcoming tournament. Forward co-captain Mallory Hoffman ’08 (Minnetonka, Minn.) says she had “no doubts whatsoever,” but for most of the team, winning the regional All-Saints Tournament in St. Cloud, Minn. was an unbelievable, thrilling victory.

Comedy performances, along with always-sold-out Ebony II shows and concerts given by the ever-multiplying-in-number a cappella ensembles on campus, have long been among the most popular forms of artistic entertainment at Carleton. But last fall, a group of students took improvisational comedy to the next level. Seniors Max Leibowitz (New York) and Ali Reingold (Huntingdon, Pa.), along with junior Tom Weishan (Stevens Point, Wis.), came together to direct “The Revolution,” an Experimental Theater Board production that premiered in November 2007.

Actress Scarlett Johansson, noted for her roles in such films as Lost in Translation, Match Point, The Prestige and The Black Dahlia, appeared at Carleton's Sayles-Hill Campus Center for a Super Tuesday rally for presidential hopeful Barack Obama. We have a short photo slideshow of the appearance.

Carleton president Robert A. Oden Jr. has written an essay for insidehighered.com regarding his and his students' experiences during "Middle East Mosaics," a Carleton off-campus studies experience. Oden, believed to be the only American academic leader in charge of an off-campus experience, led the first part of the off-campus class in Egypt before the group moved on to Turkey and Morocco under the watchful eyes of Carleton professors Steve Strand and Dana Strand.