A Different Kind of Spring Break

When most people pair the phrases “college students” and “spring break,” they come up with visions of Cancún and free-flowing drinks. But for a dozen or so St. Edward’s University students, spring break was an opportunity to go north to Chicago. They spent two weeks subsisting on PB&J and sleeping on floors to help feed hundreds of men and women at soup kitchens, help economically disadvantaged kids get a better education, and dig deep into their religious convictions. Doesn’t sound like your idea of fun? Maybe not — but that wasn’t the point. They didn’t come home with suntans or hangovers. Instead, they came home with an entirely new perspective on life.

Read the full story, which was published in St. Edward’s alumni magazine, here.

Club Culture

Once university students toss their caps at graduation, they often leave their college towns to pursue a life elsewhere. But with alumni clubs, schools can make sure that no matter how far alums are from campus, they maintain a connection to their alma mater. In this story for CASE CURRENTS, I talked to schools who have vibrant club cultures about how they build and maintain popular alumni clubs. Looking beyond the traditional happy hour or athletic event, schools are hosting architecture tours, theater events, and community volunteer activities.

Read more here (subscription required).

Behind the Numbers

There’s no question that prospective college students are obsessed with rankings—and they typically want to go to the school that’s the best. Whether that means the best academics or the best parties isn’t really important—they just want proof that the money they spend will get them what they want.

I went behind the scenes at Macalester and looked at all the ways it had been ranked for this story for Macalester Today. The school is known for top-flight academics, left-leaning politics, and a crummy sports program, among other things. But were the numbers telling the truth? I asked faculty and students to share where the rankings were right on and where (and how) they fell short.

Read more here.

Loon-atics

Every year, Minnesota Monthly publishes its annual Loonies, in which it skewers most notable antics from Minnesota politicians, celebrities, and regular citizens. Usually I split duties with other writers, but this year I got to write the whole shebang. It’s one of the few times every year that I get to do work as a humor writer, and I relish it.

Michele Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty, and Kris Humphries were among the year’s obvious targets, but there are also stories about the exceptionally high cost of certain street signs in Bemidji and one of the most innovative robberies of all time.

Read it here.

Senses Sensibility

We might use all of our senses every day, but that doesn’t mean we necessarily give much thought to them. That’s not the case with these Carleton alums, whose work and research requires them to delve deeply into what it means to see, hear, touch, taste, and feel.

For a story for Carleton’s alumni magazine, I talked to experts who explain why some of us don’t like cilantro, why our vision is never as good as we think it is, and how touch alone can heal pain. Their thoughts might make you think differently about how you experience the world.

Read the full story here.

Shooting Star

A few months ago, I was asked to profile a 40-year-old player WNBA player, Taj McWilliams-Franklin, for St. Edward’s University alumni magazine. It’s impressive enough that she can compete with players half her age these days, but the more remarkable story is how she managed to play record-setting college ball and earn a degree at SEU while raising a toddler. This year, she capped off a great season with the Lynx witha World Championship. McWilliams-Franklin’s life has more amazing twists than a dime store detective novel, and until she writes her autobiography, you can get a glimpse of her remarkable life here.

The Good Things About Public Education

The documentary Waiting for Superman made it clear that public education in America is in dire need of an overhaul. And it made plenty of parents wonder if they were doing right by their kids by sending them to public schools. But this story I did for Mount Holyoke College examines the many bright spots that exist in public education today. It’s not just individual teachers (though there are plenty), but remarkable school-wide programs, funding initiatives, and innovative ideas. Public education may not be perfect everywhere, but there are many great things still going on in schools every single day.

Read more here.

Corps Work

Plenty of people go to college with the vague idea that they want to ‘save the world.’ By the time they graduate, many have settled on more practical dreams: a job, graduate school, or maybe a bit of traveling. But there are still a sizable minority who still want to make a difference, and they often get their start in the Peace Corps.

For this story for the Carleton College Voice, I talked to five decades of Carls who had gone to the Peace Corps. For some, it played a small but critical role in their future work—for others, it was a calling. One shared a telephone with an entire village; another poured much of his $1,000 annual stipend into a challenging plan to get a science fair off the ground.  None of them called it easy, but all of them reframed their understanding of the world as a result.

Read all of their stories here.

Don’t Take My Kodachrome Away

More than one person has pointed out that the best camera is the one you have with you. For most of us these days, the camera we have with us is on our cell phone. And these tiny cameras are actually pretty good: plenty of megapixels, dozens of filters, and any number of ways to share our snaps with friends. The downside is that some truly remarkable film, Kodachrome, ended up in the metaphorical dustbin. Long the preferred film of photographers shooting for beautiful magazines like National Geographic, it was replaced by digital cameras with more flexibility.

The final batches of Kodachrome were processed months ago, and a small group of Webster University students, faculty, and alumni got to be a part of that history. They dug up about 100 rolls of Kodachrome and spent a summer shooting it—even though some had expired in the 1980s. The results were remarkable. In this story, you can read about their experience—and check out some of the final shots.

Read more here.

There’s An App For That

When I write for alumni magazines, I’m usually writing about students and alumni who have succeeded in obvious ways—they won the scholarship, the grant, the award. But you don’t always have to win the prize to feel rewarded.

For this feature story for The Grinnell Magazine, I talked to students, professors, and staff about the value that comes just in putting together the application. Many students spent dozens of hours putting together applications that required them to chart out a path for months or even years. Even if they didn’t win, many often found ways to put that blueprint into action in other ways. It was a fascinating story to report, and the students were some of the most mature and thoughtful people I’ve encountered.

Read the full story here.