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Ten Hamilton students traveled to Prague, Czech Republic, with Alan Cafruny, Henry Platt Bristol Professor of International Affairs, to participate in the Model European Union, January 5-8. Participating for the 16th year, Hamilton is a member of the Consortium of New York state colleges and universities that sponsors these conferences. During their stay in Prague, the students simulated the development of a common European refugee policy.  Students who participated were Murtaza Jafri, Matt D'Amico, Riada Asimovic, Elena Filekova, Steve Sallan, Melissa Kong, Tammim Akiki, Ntoko Xaba, Natalie Tarallo and Meghan Stringer.

The art history faculty has moved into the newly renovated Art Center, formerly the Molly Root House, and will be teaching classes in the facility this semester. Located on the south side of College Hill Road across from the Griffin Road intersection, the large white house with side porches has two first floor classrooms and faculty offices on the second floor for professors Agnes Bertiz, Rand Carter, Steve Goldberg, John McEnroe, Deborah Pokinski and Jay Williams. The building also includes a seminar room, conference room, slide library and student research areas.

Hamilton College’s Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center is continuing its series of lectures this spring focused primarily on the duties and roles of superpowers. The series is titled “The Responsibilities of a Superpower.” The evening lectures are free and open to the public. Princeton Professor Alan Krueger, Columbia University Senior Fellow Jagdish Bhagwati and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Larry Diamond will be among speakers.

At the annual December meeting of alumni leaders in New York City, Hamilton College's board of trustees announced that the institution has received more than $100 million in gifts toward its $175 million capital campaign goal. Publicly announced at last December's alumni meeting, the Excelsior Campaign is focused on raising funds for several major initiatives. Campaign priorities include support for new and expanded campus facilities, scholarships and faculty development.

First Lt. Michael Cleary, a graduate of the class of 2003, was killed Tuesday, Dec. 20, in Samarra, Iraq. On Tuesday, he had led his unit to a bomb factory which his unit destroyed and was returning from the mission when the unit was ambushed by insurgent forces. Cleary served with E Company, 1st Battalion and 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division and had graduated from Airborne School, Ranger School and Anti-Terrorist School.

At the annual December meeting of alumni leaders in New York City, Hamilton College’s board of trustees announced that the institution has received more than $100 million in gifts toward its $175 million capital campaign goal. Publicly announced at last December’s alumni meeting, the Excelsior Campaign is focused on raising funds for several major initiatives. Campaign priorities include support for new and expanded campus facilities, scholarships and faculty development.

In the last week, Cheng Li, William R. Kenan Professor of Government, has been interviewed on several radio shows recently and has been quoted in a newspaper article, all focused on the police shooting of farmers in Dongzhou, a seaside village near Hong Kong, who were protesting the loss of their farmland and access to fishing grounds without compensation.

Cheng Li, William R. Kenan Professor of Government, was quoted in an article in the South China Morning Post on December 8. The article, titled "Shanghai faces battle to retain growth record," discussed Shanghai's dilemma with how to maintain economic growth despite increased competition from other centers and central government moves to dampen property speculation. Li summarized the situation, "The top leaders in Shanghai were still obsessed with high-speed property development, without paying much attention to the potential property bubble and other socio-economic problems resulting from the single-minded construction mania."

Sharon Werning Rivera's article, "Interviewing Political Elites: Lessons from Russia," has been reprinted with an afterword in Quantitative Methods in Practice: Readings from PS (CQ Press). Co-authored with Polina Kozyreva and Eduard Sarovskii of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Sociology, the article discusses sampling, interviewing techniques and questionnaire design for surveys of political elites in post-communist societies. Quantitative Methods in Practice is a reader for introductory methods courses that uses practical cases to illustrate theories and methods.

Cheng Li, the William R. Kenan Professor of Government, was recently interviewed on current U.S.-China relations by the Beijing Review, China's only English weekly news magazine. The interview was conducted prior to President Bush's trip to China and meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao. Interviewed with Li were Stephen Roach, Chief Economist and Director of global economic analysis at Morgan Stanley, and James Dorn, China specialist and Vice President for Academic Affairs at the Cato Institute.