Carleton College is very pleased to present Havana, Cuba’s acclaimed choral music ensemble El Coro Shalom on Thursday, Sept. 13 at 8 p.m. in the Concert Hall. This not-to-be-missed performance is free and open to the public.

Carleton College is pleased to announce that Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton will be the featured speaker at its annual all-college assembly celebrating the beginning of the 2012-13 academic year. Opening Convocation will be held on Monday, September 10 at 3 p.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel; this event is free and open to the public. It will also be streamed online, viewable at http://client.stretchinternet.com/client/carletonadmin.portal#.

Today, the Huffington Post named Carleton College to its list of the "Top Ten Colleges with the Happiest Students." This latest installment of the 2013 Unigo College Rankings highlights those campuses with students "who overwhelmingly voted that they were as happy as could be!" The ranking also refers to Carleton as "an incredibly well-regarded" liberal arts school. Unigo's complete profile of the College can be found here.

Next week, Carleton College will welcome 531 members of the Class of 2016. Each year, New Student Week at the College includes a variety of activities designed to familiarize incoming freshmen with the campus and with each other. But this year’s New Student Week will feature a unique opportunity—hands-on training for CPR and AED, providing all students with the tools necessary to respond to heart-related medical emergencies. On Wednesday, September 5 from 11 a.m. until noon in the Carleton Recreation Center, the College plans to train the 531 incoming freshmen (along with over another hundred students, Hall Directors, and Resident Assistants) for CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and on the use of automated external defibrillators, or AEDs.

On Tuesday, September 4, Carleton College welcomes the Class of 2016 to campus. There are 531 students in the class, selected from a pool of 5,856 applicants. The students represent 45 states and 18 countries, with 99 students coming from Minnesota, followed by Illinois (57), California (52), Wisconsin (37), Massachusetts (29), New York (24), Washington (18), Texas (13), and Connecticut and Ohio (10 each).

Carleton College's Perlman Teaching Museum, located in the Weitz Center for Creativity, is featured in a MN Original episode entitled "Museums Creating Community." Produced with the Minnesota Association of Museums, the episode looks at the role and value of museums as they reflect their communities, preserve traditions and inspire generations. Minnesota has over 600 museums, representing a diverse array of perspectives and artistic genres, as well as numerous chapters in the state's history.

Today Newsweek magazine released its list of "2012's Best Colleges for You" and Carleton College is featured twice -- ranking as one of the top five "happiest" campuses in the nation, as well as one of the most "rigorous" colleges academically. The rankings reflect the Carleton's passion for working hard, while appreciating the importance of having fun and enjoying life both in and out of the classroom.

Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges will use a new grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to explore how increased institutional collaboration could enhance the quality and cost-effectiveness of services provided to students, faculty, and staff. The $50,000 grant will support a number of planning activities beginning this summer, and will enable the two colleges to examine the opportunities and challenges related to expanded collaboration.

Six Carleton students, including five members of the class of 2012, have been awarded highly competitive Fulbright Fellowships to pursue graduate work abroad. The recipients include: Katie Deeg ’12 (Zionsville, Ind.), Elizabeth Durham ’12 (Ottawa Hills, Ohio), Zach Hyman ’08 (East Hampton, N.Y.), Grace Ogilby ’12 (Belmont, Mass.), Jesse Pittman ‘12 (Annapolis, Md.), and Jake Reznick ‘12 (New York). Fulbright Fellowship award winners are selected on the basis of personal qualifications, academic record, and the value of the proposed project or study.

In collaboration with the Cannon Valley Elder Collegium, Carleton College is pleased to announce the first annual Northfield Summer Film Festival, running for four consecutive Tuesday evenings beginning July 10 and running through July 31. The theme of the series is "awakenings" and featured films include "Groundhog Day," "After Life," "The Crying Game," and "Local Hero." Screenings will be presented each Tuesday evening at 7:30 p.m. in the Weitz Center for Creativity Cinema and are free and open to the public.

Emmitt C. House, Carleton Class of 1971, will present the keynote address for the Carleton Liberal Arts Experience (CLAE) commencement on Friday, July 13 at 9:30 a.m. in the Weitz Center for Creativity Theater. House will address the 52 CLAE scholars and the Carleton community, speaking about his life experiences including navigating the college search process, his undergraduate education, graduate education, and his career as a lawyer.

Muira McCammon ‘13 (Hilton Head Island, S.C.) has earned an esteemed Beinecke Scholarship. Each Beinecke Scholar receives $4,000 to use for visiting potential graduate schools and another $30,000 to apply towards graduate school tuition. There are no geographic restrictions on the use of the scholarship, and recipients are allowed to supplement the award with other scholarships, assistantships, and research grants. McCammon’s research and coursework at Carleton has taken her to the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada, Latvia, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and throughout the United States. She received the International Center for Academic Integrity’s Donald McCabe award for her research on British undergraduate judiciaries at Oxford, Cambridge, and the London School of Economics.