Carleton has received an $800,000 grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) to create the Carleton Interdisciplinary Science and Math Initiative. This grant will also be used to help fund student summer research in mathematics and the sciences, as well as faculty development workshops and laboratory development. A cooperative relationship among Carleton, St. Olaf and Hope colleges is an innovative component of each school’s proposal. This year, HHMI funded 42 proposals out of 170 received. Since 1988, Carleton has received $4 million from HHMI.

Sigrun Leonhard, professor of German, received a Mellon New Directions Grant that she will use this spring term to finish a book of poetry and a novel that she is presently rewriting in German. Leonhard also was awarded a writer’s residency at Yaddo, N.Y., designed to help writers and artists work in seclusion without any outside requirements. She gave a talk to the staff at the Hamm Clinic in St. Paul titled “At Your Own Risk: Crossing Cultural Borders in Difficult Times.” Leonhard also published an article in the February 27 issue of German Studies Review titled “Rosalind Polkowskis Sehnsucht nach der großen Tat: Monika Marons Roman Stille Zeile Sechs.”

Gao Hong, instructor in Chinese musical instruments, has been awarded a 2004 Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. The grant is is a pilot program to support and assist artists at various stages in their careers. It encourages artistic development, nurtures artistic creativity, and recognizes the contributions individual artists make to the creative environment of the state of Minnesota.

Baird Jarman, instructor in art history has been awarded a $1,000 American studies course development grant for his new course, “Object lessons: Material Culture and American History,” to be taught in the fall of 2004.

Kathleen Galotti, professor of psychology and cognitive studies, served on the winter Cognition and Perception Grant Review Study Section for the National Institutes of Health.

Julie Wahlstrand ’04 received a Sigma Xi Grant In Aid of Research award for her proposal titled “Effects of bisphenol A on chromatin remodeling of the interferon-gamma promoter.” Wahlstrand is a biology major working in the research lab of Debby Walser-Kuntz, assistant professor of biology.

Gao Hong, performance activities coordinator in music and adjunct instructor in Chinese musical instruments, was featured in a January 11 story in the Los Angeles Times titled “Natural Soundscapes.” “I’ve played with a jazz group or with Indian sitar or [Japanese] shakuhachi, sometimes even with an early music group,” she said in the story. “I’ve tried everything, because I want people to get to know the pipa [Chinese lute]. You have to be open to other audiences.”

Kathleen Galotti, professor of psychology and cognitive studies, served on a grants review panel for the National Science Foundation in the decision and risk management sciences program.

The Bush Foundation has awarded Carleton a grant of $235,733 over three years to extend faculty development in the areas of writing assessment and instruction, particularly in the major. This grant is a renewal of funding first awarded in November 2000. Carol Rutz, director of the college writing program and lecturer in English, worked closely with Elizabeth Ciner, associate dean of the College, and Carleton’s corporate and foundation relations office to write and submit the proposal.

The Trustees of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation have awarded a grant of $49,000 to Carleton College, in collaboration with St. Olaf College, to support programs to redesign and strengthen library services.