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Leaping up to, catapulting over and exploding through records, the Feb. 29 #LeapForHamilton challenge was a monumentally successful fundraising effort with the support of alumni, students, parents, friends and employees. The challenge, to reach 1,812 gifts, was met at 5:23 p.m., but enthusiasm and generosity continued to mount. By day’s end, 2,868 gifts totaled $900,313, representing 158 percent of the original 1,812 donor goal. This marks a single-day giving record by a factor of more than four and exceeds the total number of gifts in any single month in Hamilton’s history.

Richard Bedient, the William R. Kenan Professor of Mathematics, penned a letter to the editor that was published in The New York Times on Feb. 29 in response to an article titled A Rising Call to Promote STEM Education and Cut Liberal Arts Funding.

In celebration of Leap Day, the college is asking all alumni, friends, parents, staff and students to “take the leap” for Hamilton and support teaching and learning on College Hill. Trustee Aron Ain ’79, P’09,’11 has generously pledged a $100 match to every gift – regardless of size - contributed today as part of the #LeapForHamilton effort. The College hopes to generate 1,812 gifts, the number corresponding with the date of its founding. In its Quick Takes section, InsideHigherEd noted the challenge and presented the college's Leap Day video.

“Be a Match” the posters and emails exhorted, advertising the Feb. 17 marrow registry drive held at Hamilton. After four such events and 500 sign-ups, Milinda Ajawara ’16 has been identified as a Hamilton match for an individual in need of a marrow transplant. Be the Match, the organization that maintains the registry, rightly proclaims that “every potential donor who proves to be a match has a chance to be a hero and save a life.”

The opening of the Wellin Museum of Art’s two new exhibitions, Yun-Fei Ji:The Intimate Universe and Pure Pulp: Contemporary Artists Working in Paper at Dieu Donné, was attended by a large receptive crowd that included several arts writers. The result has been several articles about the shows in significant arts publications reaching audiences far removed from Clinton, N.Y.

The cover of the Feb. 29 issue of Forbes magazine features a photograph of Legendary CEO, alumnus Thomas Tull ’92, with the headline “Reinventing the Blockbuster,” referencing the publication’s feature article. “Box Office Billionaire: How Legendary’s Thomas Tull Used Comics, China and a Secret Formula to Remake Hollywood” details Tull’s intricate negotiation of his impending sale of Legendary Entertainment.

An essay published in The Chronicle of Higher Education titled “What Black Campus Activists Can Learn From the Freedom Summer of 1964” by Professors of Africana Studies and Heather Merrill and Donald Carter  compared transformational strategies employed by students in 1964 with those pursued by students today. In the Feb. 1 commentary, the authors noted that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee that led the Mississippi Summer Project was built through patience and compassion.

A New York Times article about a service called College Abacus that provides financial aid information for college-bound students featured Hamilton as a college willing to work with that service to ensure that accurate data would be available.  The Jan. 16 article titled “Concealing the Calculus of Higher Education” included photos of campus as well as of Director of Financial Aid Cameron Feist.

Initiated following her junior year, Leigh Gialanella’s Emerson Grant-funded summer project resulted in more than the usual final paper and presentation. Under the continuing guidance of Special Collections and Archives Director and Curator Christian Goodwillie, Gialanella ’15 has created an interactive website featuring the Oneida Community’s library, received the Communal Studies Association's Starting Scholar Award for her senior thesis, and begun a master’s degree at the University of Michigan in a tailored track that will lead to a career in digital libraries, digital archives, and/or digital asset management.

Two exhibitions, Yun-Fei Ji: The Intimate Universe and Pure Pulp: Contemporary Artists Working in Paper at Dieu Donné, open at the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art on Saturday, Feb. 6, with a free, public reception from 4 – 6 p.m. Yun-Fei Ji: The Intimate Universe, curated by Wellin Museum Director Tracy Adler, will be open through July 2. Pure Pulp will be open until April 20. Both shows will travel to other venues.