On Tuesday the Star Tribune caught St. Olaf faculty member Stephanie Schmidt, staff member Pat Ceas (in photo), and St. Olaf students as they rounded up fish trapped by the recent Northfield flood.

Adam Gettings '04 makes his living building robots — but they aren’t the ones you played with as a kid. Oakland Police Sergeant Shawn Knight calls Gettings's Avatar robot phenomenal. “It’s only a matter of time before we see documentation of the robot saving an officer’s life.”

Northfield's state of emergency due to Cannon River flooding resulted in St. Olaf students and employees helping with sandbagging efforts. "I don't think I've ever been more proud of my college and my town," says Dean of Students Greg Kneser.

When David R. Anderson '74 became president of St. Olaf in 2006, he decided that one of the best ways to keep in touch with student leaders would be to invite them to breakfast. Four years later, the monthly tradition lives on.

Professor of Biology Kathleen Shea, curator of the St. Olaf Natural Lands, recently guided 17 St. Olaf students as they cleaned up a section of Northfield’s Cannon River. The volunteers waded through the water and policed the banks to collect 43 bags of trash, nine pieces of metal of various sizes, and two tires.

A slew of new books in the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series includes contributions by Professor of Philosophy Charles Taliaferro touching on Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, and the TV show Lost.

Grants from St. Olaf allowed Mara Kumagai Fink '11 to spend the summer researching the camps that imprisoned more than 100,000 Japanese Americans during World War II, including members of her family. Fink filed a story for Minnesota Public Radio that tells what she learned about the camps from visits with family members.

"I offer training in both philosophy and boxing. Over the years, some of my colleagues have groused that my work is a contradiction, building minds and cultivating rational discourse while teaching violence and helping to remove brain cells," Professor of Philosophy Gordon Marino writes in "Boxing Lessons" for the New York Times online philosophy forum called The Stone.

The Mayo Clinic held a groundbreaking ceremony September 15 for its new radiation oncology treatment center that will be located on St. Olaf property near Northfield Hospital. St. Olaf President David R. Anderson '74 says the college looks forward to exploring academic and employment opportunities for its students with Mayo.

Bayard Carlson '11, Elizabeth Wanous '11, Tye Humphrey '13, and Ryan Franz '06  joined a group of Mayo Medical School students on a medical brigade to Honduras this summer, where they provided health care to people in rural villages. The experience was so rewarding that the Oles are now organizing a similar trip for St. Olaf students.

An Associated Press story in the Washington Post, "Who's often dreading college sendoff more? Parents," notes that at St. Olaf, "incoming freshmen are shown a video with their smiling, crying parents waving goodbye as one big group."

By bringing all research projects — whether they're in science or math, dance or English — together under one program, the new Collaborative Undergraduate Research and Inquiry initiative strengthens the college's commitment to providing students with engaging and rewarding investigative experiences.

Opening convocation for St. Olaf College will take place Thursday in Boe Memorial Chapel. John Ferguson, college organist and the Elliot and Klara Stockdal Johnson Professor of Organ and Church Music, will present his address, "Danger: Keep Out."

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.