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The Diversity and Social Justice Project sponsored a lecture by Los Angeles Times writer Scott Gold titled "Covering Katrina: The Ethics and Politics of Our Own Natural/Human/Political Disaster" on Monday, Jan. 29. Gold, who filed reports from New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and its immediate aftermath and has continued to cover the effects on the city for the Times, spoke about his experience as well as the role of journalism in covering stories like Hurricane Katrina. Gold’s lecture was accompanied by remarks from Sean Sullivan '07, who worked on news stories dealing with the storm’s effects during his internship with Nightline this past summer.

Joseph Berger spoke at Hamilton on Thursday Dec. 1 on the topic “The World in a Single City: How Immigration is Changing the Neighborhoods of the New New York.” Berger, an education columnist for The New York Times, recently published a memoir about his own experience growing up as an immigrant in 1950s and 60s Manhattan, Displaced Persons: Growing Up American After the Holocaust.

Lois Weis, distinguished professor of educational leadership and policy at the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education, gave a lecture at Hamilton on Nov. 8 titled "Unequal Outcomes: how families and schools structure social and economic inequalities.” Weis, the author of numerous books on race, class and gender in American education, spoke about how families and schools structure economic inequalities in a way that limits the social mobility potential of education.

Doug McAdam, professor of sociology at Stanford University, gave a lecture sponsored by the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center in the Events Barn on Nov. 2. McAdam, a scholar of social movements and contentious political issues, spoke on the topic of “The Long-term Civic Impact of Youth Activism: The Curious Contrast Between Freedom Summer and Teach For America.” McAdam has recently completed a study on the civic effects of the Teach For America program on young people, and spoke about the contrast between those results and the results of his famous study on the Mississippi Freedom Summer.

Dr. Peng Hwa Ang gave a lecture titled “Who’s Really Out To Control the Internet? UN and U.S.A. Internet Governance” at Hamilton on Oct. 26. Dr. Ang is the dean of the School of Communication and Information at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, as well as one of 40 persons appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to a UN Working Group on Internet Governance in 2004. He spoke about the current international efforts to create a multilateral, transparent, and democratic method for Internet governance, as well as why it is in the United States’ best interest to relinquish some control over the Internet.

Arthur Levitt Jr., former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), spoke to a large audience of students, faculty and staff in the Fillius Events Barn on Friday, Oct. 20. In 1980, Mr. Levitt established Hamilton's Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center in honor of his father, Arthur Levitt Sr. A long-time proponent of corporate accountability and shareholder rights, Mr. Levitt Jr. spoke on the topic, "The Paradox of an Ethical Society: Are Enrons Inevitable?"

Activist and writer Rebecca Walker, founder of the Third Wave Foundation and author of such books as To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism, and Black, White and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self, spoke at Hamilton on Thursday, Oct. 19 in the Events Barn. Walker called her talk a “brief moment of contemplation” on the need for liberation, self-determination, and openness for all human beings.

Elizabeth Economy, the CV Starr Senior Fellow and Director for Asian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, presented a lecture titled “The Environmental Challenges to China’s Future” on Monday, Oct. 16 in the Kirner-Johnson Auditorium. Dr. Economy, who is an expert in Chinese foreign and domestic policy, U.S.-China relations and global environmental issues, spoke about the current environmental situation in China and how the nation’s people and government are reacting. The event was part of the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center’s fall 2006 speaker series.

Renowned choreographer and dancer Bill T. Jones presented the annual Hansmann Lecture in the Hamilton College Chapel on Saturday, Oct. 14. In Jones’s lecture, titled “The Persistence of Questioning: A Survival Technique Finding a Place Where Thought and Action Meet,” he spoke about his career in dance and the meaning of modern art. The event was part of the weekend’s dedication ceremonies for the new Charlean and Wayland Blood Fitness and Dance Center.

Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics and adjunct professor at Georgetown University, spoke on the role of wealthy oligarchs in the transition of post-communist economies on September 27. Aslund, who has served as an economic adviser to the governments of Russia and Ukraine, said that the proliferation of oligarchs in these nations is not only a natural outcome of their economic conditions, but is in fact an important step in their progress toward capitalism. The lecture was the first in the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center’s series on “Inequality and Equity.”