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On Tuesday, February 22, the new Days-Massolo Center held its first presentation on cultural diversity. The Center, which opened earlier this year, is meant to provide support for and foster dialogue about cultural diversity at Hamilton. Through its first lecture, it achieved this goal. The speaker, Giovanna Zaldini, a Somali-Italian cultural mediator, presented an informal discussion about cultural mediation.

The inaugural lecture of the new Days-Massolo Cultural Education Center will take place on Thursday, Jan. 27, at 4 p.m., in the Kirner-Johnson Bradford Auditorium. The presentation, titled “Diversity in the Liberal Arts College: Institutional Dimensions and Uses,” will feature two speakers: Eric Estes, dean of Multicultural Affairs at Oberlin College and Hamilton College Professor of Anthropology Bonnie Urciuoli.

Hamilton College has opened a new center to support its increasingly diverse student population and named it for trustees Drew S. Days III and Arthur J. Massolo.

More than 50 students from Hamilton College and the five other New York Six Liberal Arts Consortium’s member institutions gathered at Colgate University on Sept. 24 for a Student Diversity Leadership Conference. “This was the first major event sponsored by the New York Six, and it was a great success,” said Amy Cronin, special assistant to the presidents for the consortium.

Brian Peterson, author of Higher Learning: Maximizing your College Experience, talked to a group of more than 60 students in KJ’s Red Pit on Sept. 16, as part of the Cultural Education Center’s Lecture Series. Peterson’s mission is not only to prepare students to get by in college, but to inspire them to excel.

Donald Carter, professor of Africana studies, has been appointed chief diversity officer by President Joan Hinde Stewart this summer to “oversee efforts in the area of diversity and help us to build the most inclusive and welcoming community possible.” Carter hopes “to develop a broad diversity plan based on what’s going on today - the problems and successes we are having - and to build organically from the bottom up on what is already here.”

Two members of the Hamilton College faculty were recently awarded a grant by the Consortium on High Achievement and Success (CHAS). Assistant Professor of History Chad Williams and Consulting Director of the Cultural Education Center Madeleine Lopez were awarded $5,000 to support a pedagogical initiative titled “Faculty as Models of Academic Success” (FAMAS).