carleton university tour

• Visit & Learn
• Apply & Afford
• Connect With Us
• Minnesota Private Colleges Week

• Visit & Learn
• Apply & Afford
• Connect With Us

Looking for more? Browse the main college website .

How to Make Friends at Carleton

Leksi walks you through all the unorthodox ways she's made her friends here at Carleton and points you in the right direction for making your own!

• Facebook logo Share on Facebook
• Twitter logo Share on Twitter
• LinkedIn logo Share on LinkedIn
• Envelope Share through Email

With college acceptances recently out and high school seniors everywhere making the infamous commitment decision, the incoming Carleton class of 2028 is starting to take shape.  

If those new admits are anything like me (and like most freshmen here that I’ve talked to, it seems), they’re obsessively pondering life in college and constantly trying to imagine what it will look like. Coming to Carleton from out of state meant that I would be moving in somewhere knowing next to no one, apart from the few classmates I’d briefly talked to on Instagram. It was definitely a nagging worry of mine that I’d struggle to make friends here.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

For the sake of the worried class of 2028 (and also just because I like these little romanticized anecdotes about friendships I’ve made so far this year), here are, in my *very* personal experience, some of the best ways to make friends at Carleton College, especially early on during your freshman fall term.  

1. Spill your drink on someone at your inaugural floor dinner

Picture this: it’s the Saturday after New Student Week , and this is the first time I’ve spent more than a moment without my NSW group. I’m sitting outside with a USEFULL box at a massive picnic table full of sophomores and freshmen on my floor, and I’ve never met a single one of them before. I’m nervous. I’m quiet (which is rare; I am fully ready to admit that generally, I’m quite a yapper). I scoot awkwardly into my spot and start eating.  

And then there’s sprite in my lap.  

I glance up to see the poor person across from me scrambling to grab the toppled cup from the table looking at me with panicked eyes. I stare for a second. And then I start laughing. And the person next to me starts laughing. And the person who spilled his cup smiles sheepishly at us so his roommate starts laughing.  

Ice = broken.

The rest of our lunch was filled with friendly banter, and I remember this as the exact moment that I physically felt myself relax at that dinner. Turns out the person who spilled his sprite on me and his roommate are my next-door neighbors. They’re some of my closest friends at Carleton to this day. Sorry to call you out with this story, Ian, but it had to be done. Thanks for spilling sprite on me so we could become friends!

2. Debate how bad a bad french fry can really be

Hanging out with your New Student Week group for a week straight can be a little daunting at first. Things will inevitably start out at least a little awkward while you get to know each other, but don’t count New Student Week out for that reason! It’s a great way to meet people who are, keep in mind, feeling JUST as homesick and displaced as you might be during what is for many of us a first week away from home. Realizing that makes it abundantly easier to connect with the other freshmen in your group.

Naturally, I did this by starting an argument about whether a french fry could ever truly be bad enough not to eat (someone across the table from me had eaten only ONE of their plate full of fries, and I couldn’t let that slide). Before long we had the whole table taking sides about whether even the worst french fry could actually be bad food. (Quick disclaimer: the dining hall french fries are actually pretty decent. I promise.)

The point is, start a conversation with the people you do everything with during that crucial first week! I know you and your new friend will both be thankful you did.

3. Butt into a random conversation on the new student week arb tour

This is how I met one of my really close friends here on campus! While walking through the arb with a massive pack of random freshmen on a tour, I found myself rather dismayed at the fact that my new friends didn’t seem overly interested in going to the upcoming football game with me. I pleaded as we continued to talk about it, but they remained on the fence. Thankfully I was saved from planning on going alone by the girl in front of me, who turned around and volunteered to come. So, in a more general sense, be outgoing! Striking up conversations with someone you don’t know can only help you, not hurt you. Put yourself out there, and if you think an event might be fun (like the football game), go for it!

Come up with a terrible but hilarious costume for your floor to wear during Nolympics

NOlympics is THE event of the first few weeks at Carleton. Even after the fact, the buzz about who should’ve won, who deserved the spirit award, and whose costumes were the best lingers! My floor had the brilliant idea to dress up as pears; we all wore green and had little pipe cleaners and leaves in our hair… and because our RA’s name is Per, we all wore name tags with different spellings (including but not limited to Pear, Pair, Pare, Pejr, Peighr, and more ridiculous). Personally, I’m convinced we were robbed of that spirit award. Either way, though, tying pipe cleaners in each other’s hair, taking BeReals of our attire, and competing in the games was a real bonding experience, I guess, because this event is how I met many of my closest friends at Carleton, including my future roommate!

5. Spend wayyyyy too long stuck in the Libe writing a group paper for your A&I seminar

It’s a given at this point that Carleton students are driven. How driven? Definitely driven enough to slave away in the library for hours on a group essay for their A&I course, chasing a perfect score. Argument and Inquiry seminars are classes that all freshmen take during their first term at Carleton; we select our top choices and are randomly placed in one of them. They end up being small groups of about 15 students each. We were assigned two group essays in mine, and during the second one I’ll admit that the time my group spent writing and revising went a little overboard.

I remember meeting my two groupmates in the collaborative wing of 4th Libe to buckle down to work. By the end, it’s safe to say that all three of us were mentally exhausted. But, on the bright side, in the hours it took us to write our paper, we’d gotten very comfortable talking to each other! What started as a tense writing session ended up being a pretty relaxed conversation by the end. I guess we needed a little laughter to keep us sane while we wrote! One of those groupmates would turn out to be yet another member of my amazing close group of friends here. I’m so glad we were lucky enough to meet and work together during that first month of school!

Originally as I was writing this I planned on explaining all ten of these experiences in-depth, but I think you get the gist. Here’s four honorable mentions that have given me some truly amazing friendships this year.

6. Visit the superlounge and run up some Mario Kart!

7. Make a random iMessage group chat (or many random iMessage group chats)

8. Go to dinner with friends of friends (and compete to see who can beat the day’s Contexto the fastest!)

9. Walk around the club fair (and chat with people running the booths)!

10. Join a club sport!

The point is that there’s no blueprint for connecting with people here at Carleton College. As I’ve learned through my own experiences, the process is filled with all kinds of unexpected moments and opportunities to connect with some really amazing people. From spilling a drink at a floor dinner to artfully crafting your top-tier NOlympics costumes, embracing opportunities to engage with others is key.  

To the incoming class of 2028, remember that the journey of friendship is as unique and diverse as each individual on campus. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to making friends here, but I guarantee you’ll find people that fit you personally!

Leksi (she/her) is a first-year Carleton student from Colorado Springs, Colorado and a prospective pre-law Psychology or Cognitive Science major. So far, she could not be happier with her college decision! Northfield and Carleton have done an amazing job providing Leksi with the only five things she needs to thrive: local coffee, music, wilderness, the gym, ice hockey, and (of course!) her friends. She is involved in club ice hockey and the Carleton Association of Nature and Outdoor Enthusiasts (CANOE) . If you’re unsure where to find Leksi on campus, your best bet is the group tables on Fourth Libe or hopelessly lost somewhere deep in the arb . Meet the Other Bloggers!

• Mission and Strategic Plan
• Accreditation
• Facts and Figures
• Campus Safety
• Buildings and Maps
• Majors & Programs
• Class Search
• Academic Calendar
• Academic Affairs
• Online Learning
• International
• Undergraduate Admissions
• Graduate Admissions
• Tuition and Fees
• Financial Aid
• Request Info
• Student Life
• Division of Student Life and Wellbeing
• Maverick Advising Center
• Career Services
• Accessibility
• Housing & Residence Life
• Student Leadership, Involvement, and Inclusion
• Student Conduct & Community Standards
• Spirit, Tradition, and Events
• Student Safety
• Office of Engagement
• Campus Resources for Community
• Service Learning Academy
• Barbara Weitz Community Engagement Center
• Volunteer and Civic Engagement Programs
• Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center
• Faculty Resources
• Student Resources
• Voter Engagement
• Community Engagement Partnership Initiative
• Research News
• Centers and Institutes
• Baxter Arena
• Transcripts
• Thompson Center

Meyerhoff Annual Lecture Explores Art in Internment During the Holocaust

• published: 2024/05/13
• contact: Amanda Craig - UNO Office of Strategic Marketing and Communications
• email:   [email protected]
• search keywords:
• Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Annual Lecture series

From left: Danielle Battisti, Ph.D., Moderator and UNO Department of History chair; Sarah Phillips Casteel, Ph.D., professor of English at Carleton University; Elizabeth Otto, Ph.D., professor of modern and contemporary art history at the University at Buffalo; and Melanie Bloom, Ph.D., Dean of the UNO College of Arts and Sciences.

From left: Danielle Battisti, Ph.D., Moderator and UNO Department of History chair; Sarah Phillips Casteel, Ph.D., professor of English at Carleton University; Elizabeth Otto, Ph.D., professor of modern and contemporary art history at the University at Buffalo.

As part of the Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Annual Lecture series , scholars met with UNO students, faculty, and the community on Wednesday, May 1, to discuss artwork produced by Jewish and Black artists interned during the Holocaust and World War II.

Elizabeth Otto, Ph.D., professor of modern and contemporary art history at the University at Buffalo, began the event by providing a short history of the Holocaust and context for the artists to be featured in the lecture.

“From 1933 to 1945, in order to control political dissent, extract forced labor, hold enemy soldiers, and carry out the disempowerment and later genocide of Europe's Jews, Nazi Germany and its allies established more than 44,000 sites of incarceration,” explained Otto.

During this time of oppression and chaos, a Jewish artist and teacher named Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, along with her apprentice Edith Kramer, began working with children of political refugees from Nazi Germany. Dicker-Brandeis used art as a form of therapy, helping those traumatized children to retain their creativity and strengthen their individual identity and courage.

In 1942, Dicker-Brandeis was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto, a forced labor camp in Terezín. Bringing paper and art supplies with her, she was able to continue her art therapy work with children in the camp. She taught them different methods of art, such as movement exercises and still life drawings.

“Before her October 1944 deportation to Auschwitz, where she was murdered, she packed over 4,000 of their drawings into suitcases and hid them in the attic of one of the dormitories,” said Otto. Those drawings were later found and preserved. Her apprentice Edith Kramer, who fled to the U.S. in 1938, continued and expanded on what she learned from Dicker-Brandeis and established a strong legacy of art therapy that is still used today.

Sarah Phillips Casteel, Ph.D., professor of English at Carleton University, then turned the audience’s attention to Josef Nassy, a Caribbean artist of African and Jewish descent.

“He moved in 1918 to New York City, where he attended high school and earned a degree in electrical engineering,” Casteel said. Then, “much like a number of African Americans during the interwar years, he eventually sought greater freedom and prospects through immigration to Europe.”

Nassy first moved to England, then settled in Brussels with his wife. Unfortunately, the timing of this move and his association with the U.S. would prove detrimental. Seeing him as an enemy citizen of the U.S., he was taken as a prisoner of war in 1942, eventually incarcerated in the Tittmoning internment camp in Germany.

While interred there, he depended on his art to hold onto a sense of normalcy and creativity. He drew a vast collection of portraits of the other prisoners there and painted scenes of life in the camp. Many of his oil paintings portray the cramped barracks that he shared with nine other Black prisoners, including muted scenes of the men writing or playing instruments.

Casteel noted the importance of highlighting the artwork produced by artists such as Nassy and Dicker-Brandeis, stating that their work is often ignored in broader studies of the history of the Holocaust.

“Broadly speaking, art produced in the camps is viewed as having less documentary value than photography or film,” explained Casteel. “Moreover, if art produced in the camps tended to be undervalued, the Nassy collection status as internment art rather than concentration camp art has further complicated its perception.”

Despite the changing views of the artwork’s importance and how to present or categorize it, Otto and Casteel shared that the legacies of these artists are being brought more to the forefront of historical discussions and study. The artwork that Holocaust and World War II prisoners were able to make demonstrated their efforts to maintain individual autonomy and an enduring spirit.

The evening’s discussion was moderated by UNO’s department of history chair, Danielle Battisti, Ph.D. The event was also part of a larger series, “Physical and Social Spaces of Exclusion: Nazi Germany and the Great Plains,” organized by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and UNO's Sam and Frances Fried Holocaust and Genocide Academy . The three-day program engaged with more than 400 students, faculty, and community members.

• News Sections:
• UNO News Center
• Maverick Daily
• The Bullseye
• Campus Events

If you have a story idea, news tip, or other question, please email the UNO News team at [email protected] .

About University Communications

• Enroll & Pay
• Prospective Students
• Current Students
• Community Partners
• Faculty & Staff (internal)

Three new tenure-track faculty will join School of Social Welfare in fall 2024

Three new tenure-track faculty will join the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare as assistant professors this fall.

Kathryn Berringer, Logan Shinkai Knight and Ricka Mammah will start their roles in August 2024. The group brings a variety of research interests and teaching experiences to the school.

Kathryn R. Berringer

Berringer’s research explores paradoxes inherent in contemporary LGBTQ+ social movement work in the United States, particularly in the face of escalating anti-LGBTQ political mobilization. For the past five years, she has been involved in a long-term community-based partnership with an LGBTQ+ youth center in Detroit, where she conducts ethnographic research.

Her teaching experience includes teaching graduate social work courses and undergraduate anthropology courses at the University of Michigan. Berringer worked for two years as a research project coordinator and supportive services coordinator at the Chicago Center for HIV Elimination. She previously worked in HIV prevention and linkage-to-care in Washington, D.C.

Berringer earned a master’s degree in social service administration from The University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. She holds a bachelor’s degree in religion from Carleton College.

Logan Shinkai Knight

Knight’s research focuses on strategies for promoting resilience in people who have experienced human trafficking. Through participatory and critical qualitative methodologies, her research aims to be a platform for these oppressed and vulnerable groups to be heard as powerful authors of their own knowledge and agents of change within the academic and wider community.

Her teaching experience includes teaching undergraduate and graduate social work courses at Ohio State, and teaching writing courses at Singapore Management University. Knight’s practice experience includes work in client care with a nonprofit serving trauma survivors.

Knight earned an MSW from Ferris State University. She completed a master’s degree and a bachelor’s degree in language from the National University of Singapore.

Ricka Mammah

Mammah’s research investigates issues related to the intersection between gender-based violence and mental health among immigrants. She is also passionate about promoting culturally tailored interventions for immigrants and enhancing service delivery, to foster positive change and improve the well-being of diverse communities.

Her teaching experience includes teaching BSW and MSW courses at UT Arlington. Mammah is a licensed master social worker with over six years of direct practice experience. She has worked as a client advocate for refugee populations, a research coordinator for HIV+ women of color, and a foster and adoption case manager.

Mammah holds a Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Human Resource Management and a Master of Social Work from Stephen F. Austin State University. She earned her Bachelor of Social Work from Texas A&M University.