Approximately 40 Macalester students, staff and faculty gathered in Weyerhaeuser Chapel on Tuesday to pay tribute to the life of Katherine Boyer ’06.
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Garrison Keillor, best known for his National Public Radio program “A Prairie Home Companion,” stole the show Sunday afternoon in Alexander G. Hill Ballroom at a College Democrats of Minnesota get-out-the-vote event. “We’re not panicking, we’re not alone, we're Democrats,” Keillor said to cheers from the crowd of approximately 500 people.
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Award winning author Robert Putnam addressed students, faculty and staff during opening convocation Tuesday, September 7. Putnam, the author of Bowling Alone, challenged students to work to build communities and increase social interaction within them.
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The Environmental Studies department and the Humanities and Media and Cultural Studies department will undergo curriculum changes this year that the Educational Policy and Governance Committee (EPAG) recommended and the faculty approved in May.
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The class of 2008 is entering the Macalester community with a record number of domestic students of color. According to Director of Admissions Steve Collee, the class boasts 94 domestic students of color, making it the most ethnically diverse class in 34 years.
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As we return from summer vacation amidst global political turbulence and re-adjust to the academic rigor and social stimulation of the Macalester environment, the campus dramas of last Spring seem a distant memory. Yet as we re-enter the Macalester Bubble, it is clear that certain issues will, and should, return to the fore. Without a doubt, among the most critical is the debate surrounding our need-blind admissions policy.
Last year, the Resource and Planning Committee examined the current financial aid situation and recommended how the school should respond to swelling financial aid demands along with a sharp decline in our endowment. Because the need-blind/full-need policy does not cap the total aid awarded, right now the college cannot control how much money it spends on financial aid each year. The college is facing a fiscal crunch while financial aid spending is surging, this fact cannot be disputed.
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Leaders of tomorrow, are you satisfied with the John Kerry strategy?
It should go without saying that John Kerry is pro-war (both in the general and in the "on Iraq" sense), voted for the global trade agreements which prop up corporate globalization, voted for the PATRIOT Act (supports only a revision, not a repeal), lives in the pocket of the media conglomerates and even voted with Bush on No Child Left Behind, the long-term plan to end public education. If corporate candidates are one thing, they are predictable. John Kerry's past will be his future, with some exceptional leeway granted during severe, unexpected (by the public, anyway) events like 9/11.
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As an institution that prides itself on its political and social involvement, the Macalester community is surprisingly lacking in honest and open dialogue concerning the upcoming election. We are writing in the hopes of initiating such a dialogue, focused on the issues that will profoundly affect the lives of every American.
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Garrison Keillor’s speech on Sunday night was the finest I’ve heard on politics yet. Ralph Nader is a windbag! John Kerry is a thinking man! I am a Democrat because I believe that, in Keillor’s words, “If you are successful, you come out of this country and this culture and you owe something back.” He ought to be writing speeches for John Kerry or running for office himself. How wooden “Bring. It. On.” sounds when compared to Keillor’s summons to democratic arms in the name of curiosity, necessity, and excitement!
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Macalester student Katie Boyer died at her home in North Carolina on September 4. The cause was a rare blood disorder that she had since birth, but her death was unexpected. Katie was 20 years old.
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“Drink blood, smoke crack, worship satan, go Mac!” The classic football game cheer; however, not the football most of you are thinking of, the real kind of football — soccer! There are plenty of men’s and women’s games to attend before the semester is over. Check out the schedules that are posted weekly on the athletic website or on the table tents in CafÈ Mac. Just so you’re not lost, here are some of the other cheers you are likely to hear. Feel free to cut this out and bring it along to the games. Enjoy!
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Shane O’Neill is a totally awesome and out-there kind of guy who’s been known to cause a riotous raucus on occasion. I was intrigued by his unique performances in everyday life, so we sat down for some Bloody Marys together on a Sunday morning, and in true Macalester fashion, turned a power-laden interview into a democratic dialogue.
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Welcome back, fellow geeks and gamers. Also a hearty and sincere first welcome to those geeks and gamers who just arrived. In review, in this column I will present you with the best and worst of the electronic boutique that I have been sampling for the last two weeks.
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Call it a curse trapped in a blessing’s body: I was born with a voice that screams “I deliver unpleasant information in a calm yet urgent fashion.” I, myself, did not dictate the path my life would take; rather it was the natural monotone that I’ve so dutifully carried with me since the tender age of 14. And so, I stand before you now, a full-grown man whose verbal inflection you sure recognize. I am the man who quickly warns you of all possible side-effects at the end of a prescription drug commercial; I am the man who urges pregnant women and those with high blood pressure and kidney problems to abstain from riding the rollercoaster; and I am the man who advises you to drink responsibly at the conclusion of all otherwise uplifting beer commercials. A fun-ruiner, one might say. A benevolent informant, another may counter. A noble servant to the people, if I may get a word in edge-wise.
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Popularity does not necessarily signify bad art. Shakespeare packed the Globe Theatre, 20,000 Viennese citizens turned out for Beethoven’s funeral, and even Virginia Woolf’s “The Years” was the sixth best-selling fiction book of 1937 (atop the list sits Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind”).
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The works of five Macalester students and alumni are now on display at a local venue for contemporary art. The Soap Factory is currently housing an exhibition entitled “Box Fresh,” a juried show of Minnesota student art.
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If you haven’t noticed already, Macalester’s campus is an often inescapable, insular blob of a home. The buildings all face inward, and there is often enough campus-wide entertainment to keep one occupied, if not restless. For those struggling to make it past Kowalski’s or the Veggie Co-op, The Mac Weekly offers you a concert guide for the Cities this semester.
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Forget New York. Minneapolis is now the place to turn for the best new indie rock out there. Why? The answer is simple: The Owls’ EP Our Hopes and Dreams. The band, which consists of husband and wife Brian Tighe (the Hang Ups) and Allison LaBonne (Legendary Jim Ruiz), Steve Ittner (formerly of the Hang Ups, who has been replaced by John Jerry) and Maria May, is a mish-mash of twin cities indie pop mainstays. Tighe comments on the forming of the band, “It started out as a recording project, basically me adding parts to Allison’s songs. Maria, who sang on a lot of Hang Ups recordings, sang on a couple of these songs, and came up and performed with us at our first show. Soon after we asked Stephen, the original Hang Ups drummer to join and then we were all contributing songs. Eventually Stephen decided to leave and focus on his visual art and we recruited John Jerry as our drummer, who we
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The Mac Weekly is an entirely student-produced publication. The opinions expressed in this document are those of its authors and editors, not of Macalester College.
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