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The year 2012 is certainly one for celebration. It marks not only the 200th anniversary of Hamilton College’s founding, but also the 25th anniversary of an institution that has become virtually synonymous with the College itself: the Nesbitt-Johnston Writing Center. Its presence on campus today embodies a value that College luminaries like former President Melancthon Woolsey Stryker (who once penned a three-page treatise on the value of concise writing using only one syllable words) held dear—the ability to write well and clearly.

Maeve Gately ’12, Allison Eck ’12, Courtney Flint ’11 and Olivia Wolfgang-Smith ’11 participated in a joint conference by the International Writing Centers Association and the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing, Nov. 4-6 in Baltimore, Md. The students, all peer writing tutors at the Nesbitt-Johnston Writing Center, were accompanied by Director of the Writing Center and Lecturer in English Sharon Williams.

The Hamilton community’s sensitivity to its impact on the environment is reflected in several awards recently granted to the College by two national organizations. The College has been awarded LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification, established by the U.S. Green Building Council and verified by the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI), for the renovated 40-year-old Kirner-Johnson (KJ) Building.

Sharon Williams, director of Hamilton's Writing Center, participated in the annual meeting of the Ivy Plus Writing Consortium held Oct. 16-17 at Brown University.

Ten students have been selected as new writing tutors for the 2009-2010 academic year. They are, from the Class of 2010, Ethan Kamer (history) and Lizzie Marris (sociology); Class of 2011, Rachel D'Angio (environmental studies), Leigh Ercole (psychology), Courtney Flint (history), and Sushmita Preetha (women's studies). Students selected from the class of 2012 are Maeve Gately, Nora Grenfell, Julia Litzky, and Andre Matlock.

Sharon Williams, director of the Nesbitt-Johnston Writing Center, presented a talk at the annual meeting of the Small Liberal Arts Colleges Writing Program Administrators at Lafayette College on Jan. 10. Her talk was titled "Sustaining a successful writing center program across time."