College of Idaho senior Kevin Xu is a double major in finance and mathematics. Xu will graduate in May, but he already is using his financial training from the C of I to help another of his passions: the environment.

Every year, The College of Idaho’s Campus Ministries program participates in service both locally and around the world. C of I students continued that tradition and helped brighten Thanksgiving for Caldwell families by participating in the annual “Rake up Caldwell” event on Nov. 19. Campus minister Phil Rogers and assistants Cindi Duft and Phil Antilla were joined by nearly 50 students for the Saturday afternoon event, making “Rake up Caldwell” one of the best-attended Campus Ministries service projects of 2011.

A documentary film created by College of Idaho freshman Julia Levy recently was named one of 15 preliminary winners in the nationwide filmmaking contest, Project VoiceScape. Levy’s film, The Fifth Star, examines women’s suffrage in her native Washington state as well as modern female involvement in politics. Levy was awarded a $2,000 grant to complete her project, and she was honored along with her fellow winners during a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

“I was shocked I won the grant,” Levy said. “There were around 250 applications, so I felt thrilled to be selected.”

College of Idaho senior Justus Jenkins recently was sworn in and signed a five-year contract with the United States Navy after being accepted as a Nuclear Propulsion Officer Candidate (NUPOC) in Washington, D.C. Jenkins, a mathematics and physics major from Hawaii, currently is on active duty, and he plans to begin his officer training after graduation next December.

The College of Idaho Department of Theatre and Speech Arts is proud to present its fall theatre production The Hot L Baltimore, a dramatic comedy by the late American playwright Lanford Wilson. The play will show at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 3-5 and Nov. 9-12 inside the Langroise Studio Theatre on the C of I campus in Caldwell. There is a 2 p.m. matinee show on Sunday, Nov. 13. Tickets cost $15 for adults and $10 for seniors and students. For tickets and information, call the C of I box office at (208) 459-5426.

The College of Idaho speech and debate team had a strong showing over the weekend, finishing fourth in a field of 35 schools at the Steve Hunt Classic Debate Tournament held at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore. The finish helped the Howlin’ Yotes move into first place in the Northwest Conference Division II, where they are the defending champions.

The College of Idaho has 1,041 students enrolled for the 2011-2012 school year, according to the official tenth-day figures released by the institutional research department today, Sept. 26. The enrollment is the second-highest in the history of the Caldwell liberal arts college, bested only by last year’s total of 1,055 students.

College of Idaho political economy professor Dr. Rob Dayley and a team of four undergraduate student researchers recently returned from a summer trip to Thailand, where they studied the political, economic, cultural and environmental impacts of the country’s troubled tangerine industry.

Talking on a cell phone or listening to a personal music player while exercising seem as natural to most people as walking or breathing. Yet most of the dozens of electronic devices we use contain the heavy metal cadmium, the culprit in a variety of maladies if ingested. For the past decade, College of Idaho biology professor Dr. Sara Heggland and more than 40 of her students have studied how cadmium affects bone health and the onset of osteoporosis.