By Alex Park

Blogal Views- a new blog proposed at an early meeting of the Institute for Global Citizenship Student Council- was launched recently, accepting a wide range of contributions from students on topics of international significance. The first posting was in late October and since then eight other posts have been put up on the site.According to the “about” section of the site, “Blogal Views is a blog created as a space for everyone to engage in ideas, stories, current events, thoughts and whatever else could be posed in blog form.”

Although the site was created with Macalester students in mind, anyone can register as an author and contribute.

Every one or two weeks, the site’s creators will e-mail authors informing them about a new theme to focus their contributions. For this period, the theme was simply “elections.” Contributions ranged from a critique of media presentations of Gov. Sarah Palin’s sex appeal during the U.S. presidential election, to thoughts on the recently elected female president of Latvia, by a female Latvian student.

According to the “about” section, the intention of the site is to publish content that is “informal, thoughtful and conversational” about current events “and whatever else could be posed in blog form.”

The IGC student council members are selected to serve as a liaison between the Institute and the student body and promote the Institute’s mission to the college at large. It was created as part of the initial founding of the Institute and has since proposed some projects to advance the Insitute’s purpose.