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"Someday I'm going to live in the mountains of Africa like Dian Fossey and study the mountain gorillas," Beckee Wadler announced as a third-grader. Last summer, she fulfilled that lifelong dream when she spent four weeks tracking a family of colobus monkeys in Tanzania. At Hamilton, she's working closely with her faculty advisor to design her own major in primate behavior, combining courses in anthropology, psychology, biology and Swahili with hands-on fieldwork. In addition to the Tanzania trip, she's done internships and research at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute in Washington state, the Philadelphia Zoo's Primate Reserve and the nearby Utica Zoo.

So why did Beckee choose Hamilton instead of a large university with a ready-made primatology major? "I wanted to have a small liberal arts college experience," she explained. From her first visit, she sensed that Hamilton was a place that welcomed initiative. "No one ever said, 'That can't be done.' Instead they said, 'That's great, let's figure out how you can do it.'"

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