On November 3, fifteen Dartmouth students performed three-minute-long original slam poetry pieces, in the hopes of obtaining a free trip to New York for a collegiate slam invitational. The two winners were Alan Keegan ’14 and Bobby Esnard ’14.

This competition, held in One Wheelock, was hosted by Athee Le ’12, co-author of the poetry book Feral Citizens and touring slam poet. The day before the qualifier, Le held a slam poetry workshop in Collis 212, open to all aspiring poets.

The qualifier held on November 3 was organized by the Soul Scribes, a student-run group founded in 2004 aimed at promoting and showcasing spoken poetry on the Dartmouth campus…. Read more »

“3, 2, 1, Lego!” boomed the announcer as teams of students competed in the FIRST Lego League (FLL) last Saturday. Hosted by the Thayer School of Engineering, the FLL has been a national event since the early 1990s, encouraging students from local elementary and middle schools to take part in engineering and science projects. For the first time this year, faculty members are getting involved as project advisors…. Read more »

Harry Enten ’11 writes about electoral statistics and politics at The Guardian and runs a political statistics-focused blog called Margin of Error. Enten, who studied government at the College, specializes in forecasting and wrote numerous articles about this year’s election for The Guardian. Enten spoke about his love of forecasting elections and weather at TedxDartmouth in 2011, where he predicted that President Barack Obama would win the election with 51.4 percent of the vote. Follow him on Twitter at @ForecasterEnten…. Read more »

YALE: Yale University announced the appointment of Provost Peter Salovey as the next University President on Thursday. Salovey, who previously served as dean of Yale College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences dean and the psychology department chair, will assume the post as Yale’s 23rd president on June 30.

COLUMBIA: Students at Columbia University have organized a Facebook group to coordinate relief efforts aiding New Yorkers affected by Hurricane Sandy. The group, called Caped Columbians, aims to mobilize student volunteers by providing information about drives and other service events, as The Columbia Spectator reports.

PENN: Students at the University of Pennsylvania experienced difficulties at on-campus polling locations on Election Day. Some students’ names were absent from voter rolls despite their possession of registration cards, forcing them to cast provisional ballots. Five percent of ballots cast at the five on campus locations were provisional, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian. … Read more »

With winter break approaching, course selection is underway. One of the most popular tools regarding course selection is Course Picker, a web application created by the Hacker Club. A recent revamp this term has seen to a complete revision of the site, with great hopes from the Hacker Club for further improvement.

The new Course Picker, released at the beginning of this fall term was designed with user friendliness and accessibility in mind, according to Hacker Club captains Galen Pospisil ’13 and Marco Peraza ’14. The site features not only pages for specific courses, but also for professors, showing the courses they’ve taught…. Read more »

Dartmouth can be a difficult place for students on crutches to navigate, especially for those who have not been on crutches before, according to students interviewed by The Dartmouth. Not all buildings are accessible, and the ones that are have accessible entrances that are far away from the main entrances.

“I have been on crutches in many different places, but being on crutches at Dartmouth is definitely the worst,” Marina Moschitto ’14 said.

The hardest buildings to navigate are older buildings such as Dartmouth Hall, Thorton Hall, Reed Hall and Robinson Hall. However, if building access becomes a problem for students to attend classes, student could request for classroom change through the Student Accessibility Services. Students are also able to arrange for note-taking services or reschedule exam times for medical reasons…. Read more »