Impact: How Excelsior is Improving Hamilton

Buildings and Grounds

• The renovation of the Kirner-Johnson Building has completed Phase One, adding 41,000 square feet to the structure built in 1968 as the hub of Kirkland College. The KJ upgrade expands and improves the College's social science facilities and provides new homes for the College's signature Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center, Nesbitt-Johnston Writing Center and Oral Communication Center.
• Space for fitness activities tripled with the October 2006 opening of the Charlean and Wayland Blood Fitness and Dance Center, allowing for dramatically expanded programs on a campus deeply committed to wellness; the opening of the Little Squash Center nine days later gave Hamilton one of the top facilities in the country.
• The former Sigma Phi house was renovated and rededicated as the Siuda House, home to the Office of Admission and Financial Aid. Named in honor of Joy and Chet '70 Siuda, the office provides a warm and elegant front door to Hamilton College in the words of Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Monica Inzer. Planning continues for new and expanded arts facilities that will include a theatre, studio arts building and gallery museum. Meanwhile, a renovated Molly Root House, built in 1915, has become home to the Art History Department.
• Plans are under way to renovate and expand Emerson Literary Society (Emerson Hall). The new ELS will house the College Store and space for student clubs and organizations as well as for casual meeting. Dean of Students Nancy Thompson predicts ELS will become the College's family room.
• The Glen House, once the art studio of Edward W. Root, was renovated and dedicated as Hamilton's Outdoor Leadership Center, providing space for the Outing Club, the Adirondack Adventure Program, the Bike Co-op and other student activities.
• The 2005 designation of the campus landscape as the Hamilton College Arboretum, with a supporting endowed fund, was a way of signifying the importance of our environmental education, of our commitment to sustainability and to our environment, says Tom Succop '58, who chairs the Arboretum Advisory Committee.

Academics, Student Support and More...

• The largest endowed professorship in the College's history, the J.W. Johnson Family Professorship in Environmental Studies, was established with a $2.5 million gift from Joel W. Johnson '65 and his wife Elizabeth. Geoscientist Eugene Domack holds the chair.
• Named for a former vice president of the College, the Joseph F. Anderson '44 Internship Fund has provided stipends to dozens of students as they work at unpaid internships, crucial to career preparation in many fields.
• Invisible but ubiquitous, the campus wireless network allows members of the Hamilton community convenient, secure digital access across campus as well as providing access for visitors from many public spaces.
• A series of six endowed book and library funds provides a range of support for one of the College's essential learning resources as well as for specific holdings such as the Ezra Pound Collection.
• The Town-Gown Fund, established in 2000 to foster goodwill and communication between the College and the Town of Kirkland and the Village of Clinton, has been a beneficiary of Excelsior, enabling the College to make regular grants to local organizations and agencies.