For nearly two centuries, professors on College Hill have created and nurtured an intellectual community where students are challenged to formulate ideas, draw meaningful conclusions and articulate what they learn effectively and convincingly.
Please make your 2008-09 Annual Fund gift in honor or in memory of a Hamilton professor who made a difference in your life.
Your support ensures that today's students are inspired by faculty members who teach and mentor in the tradition of great Hamilton professors to remember. Together we transform lives just as previous generations of alumni made our Hamilton experiences possible. We are proud to perpetuate this legacy. It's who we are.
(Read about the recent accomplishments of today's faculty members by clicking on the full-color images below.)
Mark Bailey
Associate Professor of Computer Science
1995-present Mark Bailey received a grant from Microsoft Corp. to develop Secrets, Lies and Digital Threats, a new course that will provide background information on computer security issues for future leaders, including those who will shape public technology policy. The course will include case studies and a service-learning component in which students will run a tutorial at local high schools. A recipient of The Richardson Award for Faculty Innovation, Bailey previously designed a robotics course that combines the hardware and software of a working robot at an introductory level.
Robert Simon Marjorie and Robert W. McEwen Professor of Philosophy 1968-present Last fall Robert Simon was named to the "100 Most Influential Sports Educators" list by the Institute for International Sport. (Other honorees include Andre Agassi, Tiger Woods, sportscaster Bob Costas and Duke University men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski). In addition, Simon was one of four experts invited to present a keynote address at the first NCAA Scholarly Colloquium on College Sports. His address was titled Does Athletics Undermine Academics?.
Lisa Trivedi Associate Professor of History 1998-present Lisa Trivedi recently returned from a year in India as a Fulbright fellow where she pursued the project "Bound by Cloth: Women textile workers in Bombay and Lancashire, 1860-1940." Her research examined the development of factory reform movements and legislation in British India and Great Britain and informed her new book Clothing Gandhi's Nation: Homespun and Modern India. In the fall, Trivedi directed the New York State Independent College Consortium for Study in India, of which Hamilton is a member. She also serves on the executive board of ASIANetwork, an organization of 170 liberal arts colleges with Asian Studies Programs.
Hong Gang Jin
William R. Kenan Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures
1989-present
For more than a decade, Hong Gang Jin has administered Hamilton's Associated Colleges in China (ACC), an intensive year-long Chinese language program in Beijing. This spring she received a four-year $994,700 grant from the Department of Education's Fulbright Hayes Group Projects Abroad to create 12 full-year scholarships, enabling more students to join the ACC's advanced language and culture study aboard program. The grant also provides four new fellowships for ACC's post-study abroad field studies program and a summer Chinese language teachers' institute for 10 K-12 teachers.
Cheng Li
William R. Kenan Professor of Government 1991-present
Cheng Li, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, is called upon frequently by the media to comment on issues ranging from shifts in China's leadership to U.S.-China relations to the upcoming Olympics games in Beijing. This spring he appeared twice as a guest on the nationally syndicated Diane Rehm Show and The Charlie Rose Show. In addition Li was quoted in Time, BusinessWeek, and articles by the Associated Press and Reuters. Li is editor of the recently published book China's Changing Political Landscape: Prospects for Democracy.
Maurice Isserman
James L. Ferguson Professor of History
1990-present
Maurice Isserman redesigned the course Adventure Writing this fall to incorporate the Adirondack Adventure program as well as three other trips. Students were challenged to translate their experiences and observations into journals and other writing assignments. Another highlight of the semester was a visit by Conrad Anker, author and two-time Mount Everest climber. Isserman is co-author of a new book on the history of Himalayan mountain climbing, Fallen Giants - A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes, which has been entered for the Pulitzer Prize competition for 2009.
Ann Owen
Associate Professor of Economics 1997-present
Former Federal Reserve economist Ann Owen is often sought out by the media for comment on economic trends. This spring she discussed recent Fed interest rate cuts on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, American Public Radio's Marketplace and in a Christian Science Monitor article. Owen, who also serves as director of the Levitt Center's Sustainability Program, collaborated with two Hamilton colleagues, Julio Videras and Stephen Wu, on research presented recently at Brown University. "More Information Isn't Always Better: The Case of the Voluntary Provision of Environmental Quality" examines how individuals' beliefs about the impact of their actions is related to their behavior.
Daniel Chambliss
Eugene M. Tobin Distinguished Professor of Sociology 1981-present
Dan Chambliss continues to direct the Hamilton Project for Assessment of Liberal Arts Education, a multi-year study funded by the Mellon Foundation. He recently published an article at LiberalArtsOnline, which argues that gathering information from students — not from departments, programs, chairs or deans — produces a dramatically different understanding of how higher education accomplishes its goals. Last spring Chambliss participated in the "Test of Leadership" Higher Education Summit convened by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, comprising 300 college presidents, business leaders and education activists and policy makers from around the country.
Eugene Domack
J. W. Johnson Family Professor of Environmental Studies
1985-present
Published work of Gene Domack was cited by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its recent climate report based on the latest scientific findings, greenhouse gas emissions and predictions for the future of the Earth's climate. Domack's research focuses on how Antarctica's climate has varied over the past hundreds and thousands of years and how those changes shape the continent, especially its ice shelves. Since 1987, Domack has taken more than 100 undergraduates to Antarctica from Hamilton and other colleges and universities. This fall the College received two grants from the National Science Foundation that will continue to support the research of Domack and Assistant Professor of Biology Michael McCormick. Both grants will be applied to a series of research expeditions to Antarctica for which Domack will serve as chief scientist.
