It has been quite a year. At 1600 Grand we witnessed alumni, students, and faculty making good on their Macalester education. The last 365 days have brought joy and opportunities to this small college, which always aims to make a difference in the world. As you review the stories most read and liked by readers in 2016, we believe you\u2019ll see that Mac has once again made you proud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
24<\/a> H<\/a>ours<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s how long it took a group of Mac students to create an original piece of music and a video during Macalester\u2019s first Funkathon competition. The song, written by the group Kingdom Roots, was later performed as an opening act for Sounds of Blackness at the Mall of America. That same weekend, other students took part in Macathon, a 24-hour innovation and creativity contest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trailblazer<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sharon Sayles Belton \u201973, the first African American and first woman to serve as mayor of Minneapolis, was named by the Pioneer Press<\/em> as one of the 16 trailblazing black Minnesotans you should know more about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Impactful<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Macalester\u2019s long history of global citizenship was recognized by The Princeton Review, which put the college at #2 on its list of 25 Best Schools for Making an Impact. The college\u2019s Civic Engagement Center helps students identify community partners to work with and learn from as they seek to make a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Global Citizenship Awards<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n These three students didn\u2019t wait for graduation to make an impact on immigration, climate change, public health, and other global concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dinosaur discoveries<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n An exciting paper by paleontologist Kristi Curry Rogers and co-authors Megan Whitney \u201913, Michael D\u2019Emic, and Brian Bagley shed considerable light on the life and growth of the massive, long-necked Rapetosaurus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A chorus of Purple Rain<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Musician and Sounds of Blackness founder Gary Hines \u201974 took a moment during his Commencement speech to lead the audience in a chorus of \u201cPurple Rain,\u201d by the late musician Prince. Hines was joined on stage by actor and playwright Danai Gurira \u201901, who offered insights and advice to Macalester\u2019s 127th graduating class. (Incidentally, earlier in the year Gurira was nominated for a Tony Award for her play Eclipse<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brad Pitt<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Actor Brad Pitt read a passage from Professor Marlon James\u2019s novel A Brief History of Seven Killings<\/em> for the New York Times Magazine<\/em>. James, now Mac\u2019s writer-in-residence, is the first Jamaican writer to receive the prestigious Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2015 for that novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Who\u2019s the lead character in Game of Thrones?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mathematician and professor Andrew Beveridge knows the answer to that question and now so does the rest of the world. Jie Shan \u201914 and Beveridge collaborated on an article that appeared in Math Horizons<\/em>, a magazine of the Mathematical Association of America. Their conclusion: Tyrion. Their article quickly spread across the Internet, first at Quartz, quickly followed by stories at Popular Science, The Huffington Post, Good Morning America, National Public Radio, the AV Club, Entertainment Weekly, the UK\u2019s The Telegraph, and hundreds of other tech and entertainment media outlets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Who are the new students?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Meet the Class of 2020, an extraordinarily talented group drawn from across the U.S. and the world. More than two-thirds of this year\u2019s accepted students come from the top 10 percent of their high school classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n