Kimberly Betz '91, director of career development at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, has been named director of the career center at Carleton College. She will assume her new, full-time duties on March 4. Betz has 17 years of experience in higher education career development, including a stint at Carleton from 1996-2000 when she held roles as program coordinator, assistant, and associate director with Carleton’s Career Center. She went on to serve as director of internships at Oberlin College (Ohio) before assuming her current position at St. Catherine in 2005. In 2010, she was named administrative staff employee of the year at St. Kate’s.

The Carleton College chapter of "Eye to Eye" has partnered with HBO to host a public screening of "The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia" at the Weitz Center for Creativity Cinema on Monday, February 4 at 7 p.m. Dyslexia is one of the most common learning differences (affecting one in five children) yet it is also one of the most misunderstood. Dyslexics are bright students who happen to struggle with reading. An official selection at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival,"The Big Picture" was directed by James Redford. The New York Times says the film "busts any preconceptions about limits on what people with dyslexia can achieve." This important film screening will be following by a discussion led by members of "Eye to Eye." The public is encouraged to attend this free event.

David Gergen, a Harvard University professor and senior political analyst for CNN who served during the administrations of four U.S. presidents, will deliver Carleton College’s convocation address on Friday, Feb. 8. Gergen will talk about his thirty-plus years of experience as a political insider and his views on leadership in American political life. Convocation is held from 10:50-11:50 a.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel, and it is free and open to the public. Convocations are also streamed live and can be viewed online at http://apps.carleton.edu/events/convocations/.

Michael D. Cohen, Carleton Class of 2002, will visit on Wednesday, Feb. 6 at 4:30 p.m. in the Gould Library Athenaeum to present a talk entitled "How Did The Civil War Affect Colleges?" Cohen's appearance is in support of the publication of his first book, entitled "Reconstructing the Campus: Higher Education and the American Civil War" (University of Virgina Press, 2012). Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event and refreshments will be served. Cohen will speak at 4:30 p.m. The public is invited to attend.

Thomas Callister ’13 has been named one of the 14 Churchill Scholarship winners nationwide. The award gives him a full scholarship to earn his master of philosophy degree at the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University, focusing on gravitational wave astronomy. Callister, the first Idahoan to win a Churchill Scholarship in the nearly 50-year existence of the program, was one of only two liberal-arts college students among the 14 scholarship winners. This marks the second straight year that Carleton has produced a Churchill Scholarship winner, as fellow physics major and astronomer Michael Coughlin ’12 won the award a year ago. Both were the only student from a Minnesota college or university to win the award.

Susan Singer, the Laurence McKinley Gould Professor of the Natural Sciences at Carleton College, will take a leave of absence from the College to serve as the director of the National Science Foundation’s Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE). The NSF’s DUE sets undergraduate science education goals to provide leadership, support curriculum development, prepare the workforce and to foster connections. These goals constitute a comprehensive approach to strengthening science, technology and math (STEM) education at two- and four-year colleges and universities by improving curricula, instruction, laboratories, infrastructure, assessment, diversity of students and faculty, and collaborations.

In conjunction with the popular Northfield Arts Guild Gallery exhibit "NRTHFLD: The Nirthfolde Visitors' Bureau," professor of art David Lefkowitz will unravel the mysteries of this "slightly askew" take on Northfield in a public lecture on Wednesday, Jan. 30 from 7:30 to 9 p.m. in the Weitz Center for Creativity Cinema. Entitled "Quasi-Fictional Places: The Nirthfolde Visitors' Bureau and Other Original Facsimilies," Lefkowitz's talk will introduce audiences to "Nirthfolde...a bucolic, yet bustling burg situated in a parallel universe that neatly overlaps Northfield, Minnesota, and that has existed relatively unnoticed for over a century and a half."

Susan Singer, the Laurence McKinley Gould Professor of the Natural Sciences at Carleton College, has earned a Science prize for her Inquiry-Based Instruction (IBI) teaching tool for her genomics course called Genomics Explorers. Science's IBI Prize was developed to showcase outstanding materials, usable in a wide range of schools and settings, for teaching introductory science courses at the college level. The materials must be designed to encourage students' natural curiosity about how the world works, rather than to deliver facts and principles about what scientists have already discovered. Organized as one free-standing "module," the materials should offer real understanding of the nature of science, as well as providing an experience in generating and evaluating scientific evidence.

Carleton College archivist Eric Hillemann has published "A Beacon So Bright: The Life of Laurence McKinley Gould," chronicling the namesake of the College's library—a man who served for thirty years as a professor of geology and as Carleton's "colorful and charismatic" fourth president. On Tuesday, Jan. 29 at 12 p.m. in the Gould Library Athenaeum, Carleton will host a special booksigning event celebrating this new publication. Carleton President Steve Poskanzer will introduce Hillemann, who will give a brief presentation on the new biography. A complimentary lunch will also be provided for the first fifty attendees. Copes of "A Beacon So Bright" are available now at the Carleton Bookstore, located in the Sayles Hill Campus Center, and online at www.carletonbookstore.org and www.amazon.com.

Carleton College’s Weitz Center for Creativity will host a special screening of “Cemetery Stories: A Rebel Missionary in South Africa,” a film directed by Carleton professor Cherif Keita, which explores an early effort at resistance to white authority in South Africa and its little-known connection with Northfield. The screening, part of the College’s Humanities Center’s Perspectives in Public Humanities series, will take place on Thursday, Feb. 7 beginning at 7 p.m. in the Weitz Center Cinema. This event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Ebony Utley, an assistant professor of communication studies at California State University, Long Beach, whose work focuses on popular culture, race and interpersonal relationships, will deliver Carleton College’s convocation address on Friday, Feb. 1. Utley’s address, “The Rap On Rap And Religion,” will look at references to God in rap music and the religious roots prevalent in urban communities. Convocation is held from 10:50-11:50 a.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel, and it is free and open to the public. Convocations are also streamed live and can be viewed online at http://apps.carleton.edu/events/convocations/.

Carleton College will host Helene York, an advocate for sustainable food who directed the purchasing initiatives of the Bon Appétit Management Company (Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges’ food service provider) from 2005 until 2013, on Friday, Jan. 25. York’s presentation, “Beyond Consumer Activism: What Companies Must Do to Fix a Broken Food System,” will discuss how Bon Appétit works to make more sustainable food available to its large network of clients. Carleton’s weekly convocation is held from 10:50-11:50 a.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel, and it is free and open to the public. Convocations are also streamed live and can be viewed online at http://apps.carleton.edu/events/convocations/.