Carleton College concludes its Christopher U. Light Lectureship in the Arts with an appearance by artist Michael Kareken on Tuesday, Feb. 14 from 1:15 to 2:15 p.m. in Boliou Hall Room 161. This presentation is free and open to the public.

Carleton College will present a faculty recital featuring Thomas Rosenberg (cello) and Nicola Melville (piano) on Sunday, February 12 from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in the Concert Hall. Featuring masterpieces from three centuries of music for cello and keyboard, including sonatas by Johannes Brahms and Samuel Barber, this concert is free and open to the public.

Carleton College will host a faculty and guest artist concert featuring the Chiarina Piano Quartet on Friday, Feb. 10 at 8 p.m. in the Concert Hall. Performers include Mary Budd Horozaniecki (violin), Nancy Nehring (viola), Mark Rudoff (cello), and David Viscoli (piano). The program will feature Ludwig van Beethoven's Quartet in C Major, Lee Hoiby's Dark Rosaleen, Rhapsody on an Air by James Joyce, and Johannes Brahms' Quartet in C Minor. This concert is free and open to the public.

Michael Coughlin ’12 (Burnsville, Minn.) of Carleton College has earned one of the 14 Churchill Scholarships, providing him a full scholarship to earn his master’s degree at the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University. It is awarded to graduating seniors and recent graduates demonstrating exceptional academic talent, outstanding personal qualities, and a capacity to contribute to the advancement of knowledge in the sciences, engineering, or mathematics. Coughlin is the lone student from a Minnesota college or university to earn the award, worth between $45,000-50,000.

Dan Ariely, psychologist and author of the New York Times bestseller “Predictably Irrational,” will speak at Carleton College at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 9. Entitled “Free Beer: The Honest Truth about Dishonesty, How We Lie To Everyone—Especially Ourselves,” Ariely’s presentation will take place in Olin Hall, Room 141, and is free and open to the public. Copies of Ariely’s popular books will be available for purchase at the event, and in advance at the Carleton Bookstore, at a 15% discount.

A new series of exhibitions are on display in Carleton College’s Gould Library this winter, showcasing objects and images generated both by students and drawn from the library’s extensive collection. The four new exhibits—“Masquerading Politics,” “Cryptolibrary,” “Fovea Centralis,” and “Vietnam 2011”—are currently on display through March 11, 2012. Access to the Gould Library is free and open to the public.

Professor Myron Orfield, Executive Director of the Institute on Race & Poverty at the University of Minnesota, will present “Segregation in Schools and Housing in the Twin Cities” on Thursday, Feb. 9 at 4:30 p.m. in the Carleton College Gould Library Athenaeum. This event is free and open to the public.

Carleton College professor of history William North will give a lecture entitled “A Rare Look at Papal Ecumenicism in the Sixteenth Century: He hagia kai oikoumeniké en flõrentia genomene sunodos (1577) in Context” in the Gould Library Athenaeum at 5 p.m. on Tues., Feb. 7. This event is free and open to the public.

Michelle Alexander, a civil rights lawyer and scholar currently in residence at Ohio State University, will deliver Carleton College’s convocation address on Friday, February 10. Alexander is the author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” (New Press, 2010), which will be the subject of her address, focusing on the continued legacy of discrimination against African Americans, particularly through the mass incarceration of black men. Convocation is held from 10:50-11:50 a.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel, and it is free and open to the public. A booksigning will follow Alexander’s presentation and copies of “The New Jim Crow” will be available for purchase at the event.

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation is awarding $189,902 to Carleton College in support of the Summer Connections project, which will provide need-based scholarships for high-achieving, low-income high-school students to attend Carleton summer academic programs. The grant, renewable for up to three years, will increase Carleton’s ability to make summer programs available to students who otherwise would not be able to attend due to financial reasons. In summer 2012, the grant will provide scholarship funding for 41 eligible students. The grant will also provide support for national publicity about the program and staffing to help administer scholarship program expansion.

Shelton Johnson, a ranger with the National Park Service for 25 years and author of the fictional memoir Gloryland (Sierra Club Books, 2009), will deliver Carleton College’s convocation address on Friday, February 3. Johnson’s presentation, entitled “Gloryland: Using History and Literature as Tools for Social Change,” will look at his book, a portrait of a fictional African-American “buffalo soldier” in the 19^th-century U.S. cavalry. A booksigning will follow the presentation, with copies of Gloryland available for purchase at a 15% discount. Convocation is held from 10:50-11:50 a.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel, and is free and open to the public.

Carleton College’s Department of Asian Languages and Literatures, along with the Asian Studies Program, will present a lecture by Maki Isaka, a professor at the University of Minnesota, on Friday, Feb. 3 from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. in the Gould Library Athenaeum. Isaka’s talk, “Why Can’t Women Do the Job? The Art of Femininity in the Kabuki Theater,” will discuss the significance of femininity in traditional Japanese Kabuki theater. Isaka’s talk is free and open to the public.