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Al Gore, the 45th vice president of the United States, was the 15th lecturer in the Sacerdote Great Names Series at Hamilton College on Thursday, April 26, in the Margaret Bundy Scott Field House. Mr. Gore's lecture on the threat of global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," was accompanied by the multi-media presentation on which his best-selling book and Academy Award-winning film of the same name are based. Gore asked those in attendance to take on global warming, calling it "the most dangerous crisis we have ever faced in our civilization."

Nine students who spent this semester volunteering with refugees in nearby Utica, N.Y., and learning about the refugee resettlement process in the United States gave a presentation on April 25 sharing what they have learned about the experience. The students of Government 202, “Immigrants and Refugees in the U.S.,” spoke about the process by which refugees come to be resettled in the U.S. and the challenges they face in adapting to their new home. They also told the personal stories of refugees they came to meet through their volunteer work with Project SHINE (Students Helping in the Naturalization of Elders) in Utica.

The Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center presented a lecture by Richard Wasserstrom on the morality of race-based affirmative action programs on April 23. Wasserstrom, a scholar of applied ethics and the philosophy of law, is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In his lecture, Wasserstrom defended the morality and importance of programs of preferential treatment based on race and then addressed three moral criticisms often made by opponents of these programs.

The Hamilton College Womyn's Center will sponsor its annual Womyn's Energy Week (WEW) from April 10-14. Womyn's Energy Week, held every April, celebrates the accomplishments of Hamilton women and address issues relating to women at Hamilton and around the world. This year's WEW will include events on such topics as women's athletics, issues of gender, race, and class related to Hurricane Katrina, women's health, car maintenance and self-defense.

David Limbaugh, nationally syndicated conservative political columnist and public speaker, spoke in the Fillius Events Barn at Hamilton on April 3. Limbaugh's talk, titled "Persecution: How Liberals are Waging War Against Christianity," outlined his arguments in a book of the same name about secular liberal hostility towards America's cultural and political roots in Christian ideals. The event was hosted by the Hamilton College Republicans, and was sponsored by Student Assembly, the Office of the President, and Young America's Foundation.

Valerie Purdie-Vaughns, assistant professor of psychology at Yale University, delivered a lecture at Hamilton on March 28 titled, “Out of the Laboratory and Into the University: Stereotype Threat and Powerful Influences on Student Achievement.” Purdie-Vaughns spoke about the phenomenon of stereotype threat, in which students who face negative stereotypes about their academic abilities will perform more poorly. She discussed the research being done on the topic, and how what has been learned can be applied to efforts to alleviate achievement gaps. The lecture was sponsored by the Diversity and Social Justice Project and the Dean of the Faculty.

Janet Halley, the Royall Professor of Law at Harvard University, and formerly a professor of English at Hamilton College, gave a lecture titled “Define and Punish: New Feminist Reforms in the ‘Law in War’” on March 1 to a large audience in the KJ Red Pit. Halley spoke about the reforms on war-time rape law that feminist legal activists have pressed for in international law, and outlined three dilemmas she believes feminists must face in regard to this issue. Her lecture was sponsored by the department of women’s studies, the Kirkland Endowment, and the Dean of the Faculty. 

The Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center sponsored a lecture by Harvard University assistant professor of economics Roland Fryer, titled “Toward a Unified Theory of Black America,” on Jan. 31. Fryer, whose work focuses on understanding racial inequality through quantitative research, spoke to a crowded Chapel audience about several of his past studies as well as his current project, which provides students in urban public schools with monetary incentives for good academic performance.

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.