[9] Carleton's varsity sports compete at the NCAA Division III level in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

The school was founded in 1866, when the Minnesota Conference of Congregational Churches unanimously accepted a resolution to locate a college in Northfield.

On his way from visiting a potential donor, William Carleton of Charlestown, Massachusetts, Strong was badly injured in a collision between his carriage and a train.

In its early years under the presidency of James Strong, Carleton reflected the theological conservatism of its Minnesota Congregational founders.

In 1903, modern religious influences were introduced by William Sallmon, a Yale Divinity School graduate, who was hired as college president.

After Sallmon left, the trustees hired Donald J. Cowling, another theologically liberal Yale Divinity School graduate, as his successor.

It lasted until 1928, when the Baptists severed the relationship as a result of fundamentalist opposition to Carleton's liberalism, including the college's support for teaching evolution.

[15] Non-denominational for a number of years, in 1964 Carleton abolished its requirement for weekly attendance at some religious or spiritual meeting.

Located in the basement of Evans Hall, it continues to host live music shows and other events several times each week.

During World War II, several classes of male students went through air basic training at the college.

[17] The world premiere production of the English translation of Bertolt Brecht's play, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, was performed in 1948 at Carleton's Little Nourse Theater.

[18] In 1963, Carleton students founded the Reformed Druids of North America, initially as a means to be excused from attendance of then-mandatory weekly chapel service.

[citation needed] President Bill Clinton gave the last commencement address of his administration at Carleton, on June 10, 2000, marking the first presidential visit to the college.

[23] Carleton is a small, liberal arts college offering 33 different majors and 37 minors, and is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.

Ten languages are offered: Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.

[55] The school's nearly 240 active student organizations include three theater boards (coordinating as many as ten productions every term), long-form and short-form improv groups and a sketch comedy troupe, six a cappella groups, four choirs, seven specialized instrumental ensembles, five dance interest groups, two auditioned dance companies, a successful Mock Trial team, a nationally competitive debate program, and the student-run 24-hour KRLX radio station, which employs more than 200 volunteers each term.

[58] In five of the last twelve years, Carleton College students received the Best Delegation award at the World Model United Nations competition.

[62] The Carleton Literary Association Paper (The CLAP) is a weekly satire publication, distributed on Fridays during convocation time.

Early the following morning, college maintenance staff painted over it (although in his speech, Clinton mentioned his amusement and regret it had been covered before he could see it).

In 2006, students created an online scavenger hunt, made up of a series of complex riddles about Carleton,[68] which led participants to Schiller's hidden location.

[71] In 1964, Carleton students named an intramural slow-pitch softball league after Marv Rotblatt, a former Chicago White Sox pitcher.

The 1,040-acre (420 ha)[clarification needed] school campus is on a hill overlooking the Cannon River, at the northeast edge of Northfield.

Musser and Myers Halls were built in 1958 as men's and women's dorms respectively, in a bare-bones modernist brick style.

The Arboretum has approximately 800 acres (320 ha) of restored and remnant forest,[96] Cannon River floodplain, bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) savannah, and tallgrass prairie.

[97] A wind turbine located near the campus generates the equivalent of up to 40 percent of Carleton's electrical energy use; it is configured to sell this power back to the local grid for the most efficient use system wide.

[108] Carleton founded the first women's rugby club in the state of Minnesota in 1978[109] and went on to win the Division III National Championship in 2011.

Dean's author's note begins, "Readers acquainted with Carleton College will find much that is familiar to them in the architecture, landscape, classes, terminology, and general atmosphere of Blackstock."

[113] Ben Wyatt, a character from NBC's Parks and Recreation, graduated from Carleton with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science.

Notable graduates of Carleton College include economist Thorstein Veblen (1880), US Supreme Court Justice Pierce Butler (1887), management scholar and founder of servant-leadership Robert K. Greenleaf (1926), research chemist Ray Wendland (1933), pioneer in women's abortion rights Jane Elizabeth Hodgson (1934), US Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird (1942), Intelligence Officer John J. Hicks (1943), NBC television journalist and Meet the Press host Garrick Utley (1961), geologist Walter Alvarez (1962), chemist Robert G. Bergman (1963), environmentalist author Donella Meadows (1963), geneticist and discoverer of BRCA1 Mary-Claire King (1967), European historian Lynn Hunt (1967), historian of American sexuality and gender Kathy Peiss (1975), bestselling author of thriller novels Lincoln Child (1979), dean and law professor Margaret Raymond (1982), astrobiologist and president of METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Douglas Vakoch (1983), co-founder of the Broad Institute and Harvard Medical School professor Todd Golub (1985), editor-in-chief of Politico John F. Harris (1985), two time Pulitzer Prize winning historian T. J. Stiles (1986), editor of Mother Jones magazine Clara Jeffery (1989), American journalist and television personality Jonathan Capehart (1990), Indian-American psychologist and author Regan Gurung (1991), children's television host Chris Kratt (1992), award-winning speculative fiction writer and blogger Naomi Kritzer (1995), climber and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Jimmy Chin (1996), singer-songwriter Laura Veirs (1997), writer Aisha Sabatini Sloan (2003), and nutrition researcher Genevieve Stearns.

Notable faculty have included Ian Barbour, winner of the 1999 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion; Laurence McKinley Gould, Antarctic explorer; Burton Levin, US Ambassador to Burma (1987-1990); and Paul Wellstone, U.S.