When cyclist Sam Williams '14 recently told his parents he was "going for a ride," he had bigger ideas than pedaling leisurely through his hometown of Noblesville, Indiana. Nine days and 640 miles later, he finished his journey outside St. Olaf's Hoyme Hall in plenty of time for Week One orientation that begins Saturday.

Minnesota Public Radio's Alex Friedrich calls Williams "The most relieved student at St. Olaf."

As part of a series running up to the World Philosophy Day Conference that will be held in Tehran later this fall, Professor of Philosophy Charles Taliaferro was interviewed recently by Iran's Mehr News Agency about the possibilities of developing a dialogue between Eastern and Western philosophers.

Assistant Vice President for Enrollment and Dean of Student Financial Aid Kathy Ruby spoke with Minnesota Public Radio and the Star Tribune about a new survey that shows students are increasingly turning to their grandparents and other relatives to help pay for college.

More grandparents are calling St. Olaf and offering to make payments on their grandchildren’s tuition, Ruby tells MPR. Yet it’s hard to know for sure how many grandparents are offering financial support because, as she tells the Star Tribune, very few students report relatives’ contributions on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA.

A recent Star Tribune article takes a close look at how a number of federally funded TRiO Student Support Services programs serving low-income, first-generation, or disabled college students have not been granted money for the coming year.

St. Olaf's SSS program that currently serves 180 students did get re-funded at nearly $1.3 million for five years — in addition to money from other sources, including the college. The story notes that St. Olaf accepts more students into its program than they have funding for, but "There are just so many students that want to be served," says program director Kathy Glampe '92, who benefited from the program when she was a student.

President David R. Anderson '74 shares his take on three books he recently read — Nicole Mones' The Last Chinese Chef, Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, and David Ebershoff's The Danish Girl — with MinnPost's "Book Club Club" section.

Anderson's reviews are part of an occasional series MinnPost publishes called "What they're reading" that looks at the books Minnesotans are reading and recommending to others. An English professor and avid reader, Anderson also maintains a list of what he's reading — with reviews of each book — on his Web site.

Chris Lomen '10 tells local NBC affiliate KARE 11 that he hopes his 4,000-mile Rollerblading journey across the country will raise enough money to rebuild as many as 10 schools devastated by the January earthquake in Haiti.

His ambitious goal also caught the attention of local ABC affiliate KSTP, which notes that Lomen spent six months planning his trip. Star Tribune sports columnist Michael Russo also picked up on Lomen's story, as did the White Bear Press and the Huffington Post.

Lomen, founder of the nonprofit Rolling to Rebuild, is aiming to raise $100,000 for Outreach International through his trek, which will take him south to St. Louis, northeast to Maine, and then back south to Key West.

A new Minnesota Public Radio feature called "Minnesota Sounds" highlights St. Olaf's unique Memorial Tower. The story includes the sound of the chimes and College Pastor W. Bruce Benson recounting how the tower was crafted by a team of faculty and staff to memorialize students who have died while enrolled at the college.

Hear more of the chimes and watch a virtual tour at St. Olaf Multimedia ...

A Minnesota Public Radio story that looks at how St. Olaf students are turning to alumni for career assistance and advice focuses on music major Ana Ashby '10 and her success with the Career Network for Oles, a networking program started this year by the Center for Experiential Learning, President David R. Anderson '74, and the Office of Alumni and Parent Relations.

"Some students are burying their heads in the sand and saying, 'There's nothing out there for me so I'm not even going to try,'" Kirsten Cahoon, senior associate director of career connections at St. Olaf, told MPR's Tim Post. "[Career Network for Oles] mitigates that initial fear on students' behalf of having to go out and make a cold call, or email an alum with whom they've never met."

In 1991 two "shaken" students approached St. Olaf administrator Greg Kneser. "They proceeded to tell me a ghost story. A pretty good one," Kneser recently told the Star Tribune about the encounter that resulted in the creation of his unique "Ghost File."

Read the story and watch the video at the Star Tribune.

NBC affiliate KARE 11 has posted a story about the annual "Broken Bat" game that on May 19 ended in an 11–4 victory for the St. Olaf Band over the St. Olaf Orchestra.

Watch a video story about last year's game.

As part the Philosophy 254 Law, Politics, and Morality class, Professor of Philosophy Gordon Marino assigned his students to submit Op-Ed pieces to newspapers around the country. The first in the class to be published is Annika Tohlen '11, who submitted "Why the 'tell-all generation' is cleaning up its act" to the Oregonian.

"It's common knowledge that many of the blessings and curses of modern college life revolve around the Internet," Tohlen begins, followed by a discussion of how her generation relates to Facebook — social networking's "chief behemoth."

Associate Professor of Art and Art History Mary Griep was featured recently on MN Original, the new weekly arts series produced by Twin Cities Public Television. The show featured Griep's work on sacred spaces that depicts a number of places from Cambodia to Mexico.

Griep says her drawings — which embody both the outside and the inside of the spaces in the same work — sometimes have taken a year to perfect, which mirrors the time and care that was put into the building of the actual temples, shrines, and churches. She calls upon the viewers of her work to remember all of the people involved in creating or maintaining the famous buildings and the kind of detail and attention they've given.

"I think about the fact that in many of these buildings the people who started working on them never saw the end product," she says. "It wasn't really as much about the end product as it was about this process."

Listen to Tor Odden '11, a physics major studying in Scotland, tell Minnesota Public Radio about being stranded in Rome while traveling during Europe's recent air travel shutdown. Although the experience has been tough for thousands of travelers, Odden has a few reasons to be upbeat ...

A new MinnPost blog about higher education, "The Next Degree," launched this week with an article about teaching civil discourse. Noting that "some folks ... point out that civil discourse is the goal of a liberal arts education," author Casey Selix spoke with Associate Professor of Political Science Douglas Casson, who teaches political theory. "At St. Olaf, we are trying to teach a certain type of humility and empathy," he says.

"St. Olaf College spent years shaping a vision for a modern science facility that reflected the college's commitment to sustainability and to green chemistry, a subject gaining interest within industry and education," begins Rochester Post-Bulletin writer Dawn Schuett in a profile of Regents Hall of Natural and Mathematical Sciences.

Read more about Regents Hall.

Local TV stations KARE 11 and WCCO 4 have featured the St. Olaf Rube Goldberg team as the students make some final adjustments to their machine before the national competition at Purdue University March 27.

"I'd say it's the engineering version of March madness," team co-captain Bryce Danielson '11 told KARE.

Download a diagram of the machine, and learn more about the team.

Mary Abbe, art critic for the Star Tribune, recently ventured down to campus to check out "Arabesque" -- a new art show by the mother-daughter team of sculptor Judy Onofrio and painter Jennifer Onofrio Fornes.

"The question of how to suggest and depict the human spirit has puzzled artists since our forebears first sketched the outlines of bison on cave walls many millennia ago," writes Abbe. "Birds, watery reflections, smoke and shadows have all evoked the spirit world. While nodding to those ancient traditions, Onofrio and Fornes go a step beyond, creating their own yin and yang of darkness and light, animation and silence, bones and blossoms, death and regeneration."

Inside Higher Ed recently quoted James May, provost and dean of the college and professor of classics, in a story about how some colleges and universities -- Centenary College in Louisiana, for example -- are trying to trim costs by targeting small academic programs such as classics departments.

"Anyone who knows a lot about the field of classical studies knows that it is the original interdisciplinary study," he says, noting that colleges are promoting interdisciplinarity and global awareness. And, he adds, "when you eliminate a person whose main thrust has been the study of antiquity, you are eliminating a natural interdisciplinary person."

Twin Cities CBS affiliate WCCO TV recently shot some video of the Serious Man blackboard section in the St. Olaf carpentry shop, including carpenter Gregg Menning as he crafted the frame out of black walnut previously harvested from the Regents Hall construction site.

The Feb. 27 Black and Gold Winter Gala raised more than $109,000 for St. Olaf, including $2,600 for the blackboard. Scroll down to see what the Star Tribune wrote about the blackboard.

In "A valuable piece of film history -- in a lecture hall," the Star Tribune tells the story of how St. Olaf got to be part of the Oscar-nominated film A Serious Man, and how the college is making use of a unique prop the crew left behind.

The Feb. 27 Black and Gold Winter Gala raised more than $109,000 for St. Olaf, including $2,600 for the blackboard. Scroll up to watch WCCO TV's story about the blackboard.

"A study in green science" in the February issue of Consulting-Specifying Engineer features Regents Hall of Natural and Mathematical Sciences and the building's recently bestowed LEED Platinum rating (read more about the prestigious rating). The article states that Regents Hall "is expected to reduce energy costs by 50 percent compared to the Minnesota Energy Code."

"Under the exacting direction of conductor Anton Armstrong, the choir showed enviable cohesion, accurate intonation, and impressive flexibility with a high tenorial center of gravity," wrote Chicago music critic Lawrence Johnson after the St. Olaf Choir's tour performance Friday. "Also striking was their relaxed physical presence, the singers swaying freely to the music."

Watch the St. Olaf Choir and St. Olaf Band home concerts archived online.

The Washington Post is reporting that, with 26 volunteers, St. Olaf College is the leading producer of Peace Corps volunteers among small schools (with fewer than 5,000 students; St. Olaf enrolls 3,000). The No. 1 slot -- the first time that St. Olaf has topped the small school category since the Peace Corps began ranking schools based on the the three-tier enrollment system in 2003 -- is an improvement over last year's No. 2 ranking, and No. 9 in 2008.

Nearly 500 St. Olaf alumni have volunteered for the Peace Corps since that organization was created in 1961.

A recent Los Angeles Times opinion piece about mistakes journalists have made with large numbers ("But who's counting?") quotes Lynn Steen, St. Olaf professor emeritus of mathematics. "Generally people do not have sufficient experience with large numbers to have any intuitive sense of their size," he told the paper.

A recent U.S. News & World Report story, "5 Unique Ways to Go Green if You're Living in a Dorm," cites the St. Olaf wind turbine as a noteworthy example of energy-efficient college facilities and construction projects.

Visit "About St. Olaf" to learn more about sustainability at the college.

This month 717 St. Olaf students are studying off campus, including 600 in international programs ranging across the globe -- from studying Spanish in Ecuador to mathematics in Budapest to the St. Olaf Band touring Japan.

Associate Professor of Russian Marc Robinson currently is leading 18 students in the Theater in Russia class. "Over the last few years, this intrepid educator has put together groups of students and brought them to Russia for a month of intensive study," writes theater critic John Freedman in The Moscow Times. "It’s no walk in the park. They have class every day, they have meetings almost every day with actors, writers and diplomats, and almost every evening they attend the theater."

The fifth annual Zoom! Yah! Yah! indoor marathon held at St. Olaf Jan. 10 featured 42 entrants from around the country running 150 laps in St. Olaf's Tostrud Center.

At right, Christopher Friedman, Dunlap, Ill., defended his title from last year and set a new course record with his 2:42:32 time. Other participants included Tom Pavletic, Reno, Nev., who became a member of the 50 States Marathon Club when he finished this year's race.

Read more about the race in the Star Tribune ...

Professor of Political Science Dan Hofrenning was quoted recently in the St. Paul Pioneer Press regarding Minnesota's gubernatorial race. "One surprise in the 21st century is that the party endorsement still has value," he said. "You would think in the age of the Internet and Facebook and the candidates' ability to raise money on their own, it's surprising that the endorsement is still taken very seriously on the Republican side and on the Democratic side."