The start of the 2010-11 academic year began with the traditional opening convocation in Skinner Memorial Chapel on Monday, Sept. 13. Jimmy Kolker ’70 was the headline speaker and the event also marked new Carleton President Steven G. Poskanzer’s first full-campus event.

Steven Schier, the Dorothy H. and Edward C. Congdon Professor of Political Science, told the Christian Science Monitor that the California U.S. Senate race just may hold the key to which party will control that legislative body after the 2010 elections. “The 2010 California Senate race is very important nationally,” he said. “If the GOP is to gain control of the Senate, they must win the California Senate race.” The race, between Democrat incumbent Barbara Boxer and Republican challenger Carly Fiorina, may well hinge on which candidate can sell their jobs plan to a downtrodden California economy and its voters. “The job creation issue will clearly separate Boxer and Fiorina,” says Schier. “Boxer will likely argue for the effectiveness of the 2009 stimulus spending and urge more such spending to resuscitate the economy. Fiorina will brand the stimulus a mistake and argue for tax cuts and deficit reduction as a means to restoring jobs.”

Steven Schier, the Dorothy H. and Edward C. Congdon Professor of Political Science, is quoted in the July 28 edition of the Star Tribune regarding the Minnesota governor’s race and how money is playing a large role in the upcoming primary in a seemingly wide-open race. “Money is essential in the primary,” Schier said. “No one’s paying attention, and you’ve got to really shout at them to get their attention, and television and direct mail are really the two things going on right now.” The article notes that in the 2006 governor’s race, Republican incumbent Tim Pawlenty, DFLer Mike Hatch and Independence Party candidate Peter Hutchinson spent a little over $8 million. DFL candidates Mark Dayton and Matt Entenza have spent more than $7 million between the two of them, much of it from their own personal, deep pockets. DFL-endorsed candidate Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Republican Tom Emmer and Independence Party candidate Tom Horner account for the remaining money spent in advance of the Aug. 10 primary.

In the Newsweek blog “The Gaggle,” Steven Schier, the Dorothy H. and Edward C. Congdon Professor of Political Science comments on the possibility of former Minnesota U.S. Senator Norm Coleman ascending to the chair position of the Republican National Committee. Schier paints Coleman as a polar opposite to the current RNC chair, Michael Steele. “Coleman is temperate, thoughtful—he listens,” says Schier. “He stays away from grandiose statements.”

In the July 21 edition of City Pages, Steven Schier, the Dorothy H. and Edward C. Congdon Professor of Political Science, talks about whether or not DFLer Matt Entenza can win the parties primary for governor of Minnesota. “Mark Dayton’s percentage is pretty well fixed, a ceiling and floor that’s in the mid- to upper 30s,” he says. “The real question is whether Entenza or Margaret Anderson Kelliher are able to gather enough support to catch Dayton.” The fact the primaries are moved up to Aug. 10 might also help the darkhorse Entenza. “Entenza has a better chance because there’s really no substitute for advertising in a low-interest election.”

Stomping around the Siberian Arctic is an unlikely way for Carls to spend their summer. Nevertheless, thanks to Max Holmes, the 2008-2009 Chesley Distinguished Visiting Associate Professor of Biology and founder of the Polaris Project, three Carleton students will be traveling across the globe this July for a first-hand look at how climate change is impacting a unique Arctic ecosystem.

Carleton students in Paul Hager’s cinema and media studies class last winter shot, edited and produced short videos for local non-profit organizations, and the project has caught the eye of the Northfield News in its May 25 edition. Hager and the class worked with Adrienne Falcon, director of academic civic engagement at Carleton, to identify potential clients, and the students then shot, edited and produced pieces for such places like the TORCH program at the Northfield High School, Northfield Historical Society, the Cannon River Sportsmen Club, the Community Action Center Food Shelf and Thursday’s Table. Libbie Weimer ’10 of Williamstown, Mass., produced a video about Growing Up Healthy, a Rice County nonprofit aimed at improving the lives of area youth, and said civic engagement was a great component of the class. “There are certain challenges that come with doing something outside of Carleton,” Weimer said. “It adds a lot to an academic experience.” The videos are used on organizations’ websites and in fund-raising activities to help the non-profit tell its particular story. You can view all the videos on Hager’s YouTube channel.

Susan Singer, the Laurence McKinley Gould Professor of the Natural Sciences, is quoted in the May 12 edition of an Education Week story, “Momentum Building for Hands-On Science Learning.” The story examines how a national trend towards stressing the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math has resulted in a hard look at how students at the high-school level should be receiving a high-quality lab experience. “The goal is to get away from ‘cookbook’ labs and find ways to get these labs more deeply integrated in the curriculum, not done in May after the AP exams are finished, which sadly happens,” she says in the article. “I think the AP will drive a lot of the other curriculum, … because how do you get kids to the point where they can do this kind of lab learning?” Singer chaired a committee that produced a 2005 National Research Council report on laboratory-based education.

Carleton’s Washington Program was featured in the April 10 edition of the Star Tribune. The program, in its 12th year, is run by Steven Schier, the Dorothy H. and Edward C. Congdon Professor of Political Science. The article focuses on Bill Brinkman ’12, who is serving as an intern in the office of Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, along with Brooke Davis ’11 and Olivia Killeen ’10. The online edition has vidoes of all three students. “You can almost sense it wherever you go, that people are vying for different things,” Brinkman tells the paper. “It happens in Congress. People are vying for power. It happens all over the place.” Schier relates that the experience gives Carleton students an inside look at the power structure in the nation’s capital. “There are some who take to Washington and see it as a magnet for opportunities, and some who get a little jaded,” he says. 

Steven Schier, the Dorothy H. and Edward C. Congdon Professor of Political Science, commented on the possibility of a showdown between state attorneys general and governors over the newly-passed federal health-care bill in the March 23 edition of the Christian Science Monitor. “State attorneys general are constitutionally independent state officers and have autonomy in their decisions to take action on behalf of their states,” Schier says.  He says the same thing could happen elsewhere, such as in California, but that given Jerry Brown’s support for the healthcare legislation, “that seems unlikely.”