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Jayne Anne Phillips, award-winning novelist and short story writer, will read selections from her work on Thursday, April 1, at 8 p.m., in the Fillius Events Barn at Hamilton.

Assistant Professor of Africana Studies Nigel Westmaas participated in a four-person panel who responded to questions at the University of Toronto launch of a new documentary film on March 26. The film, “W.A.R: (Walter Anthony Rodney) Stories,” captures the life and work of the renowned Guyanese historian and scholar-activist. Walter Rodney, an influence on the Black Power movement, Pan-Africanism, Caribbean independence and the idea of self-emancipation, was assassinated in 1980. Westmaas was also one of several advisors and archival consultants on the film.

“I’ve long been interested in Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln,” announced Harvard professor John Stauffer to his audience in the Kennedy Auditorium on March 30. As a child, Stauffer frequently moved from one house to the next – nine times, to be exact – and as such, his experience of childhood was that of something impermanent and perpetually transitory. “Along with tennis, my constants were history and literature,” he said. No matter where he went, he could count on those things to remain the same. Significantly, at thirteen years old, a friend lent him Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass – something that indeed changed his life for good. “I loved the way he wrote, and the power of writing resonated with me,” Stauffer explained. He read Abraham Lincoln a short time later, and soon become permanently enthralled with antebellum American history.

Steve Talevi ’79, P’10 and his wife Jacqueline opened their home to a group of Hamilton students on an Alternative Spring Break trip in March. The students, who volunteered at Habitat for Humanity in Mississippi, spent a night at the Talevi’s home in Roanoke, Va., as a halfway point on their way back to campus. The ASB group included Jennifer Talevi ’10.

Through his interface on the web, Jeff Harris ’10 noticed a void on the Internet when it came to the ability to have group conversations. So he did what any budding software entrepreneur would do – he moved to Silicon Valley and built a discussion platform that makes group conversation and overall collaboration possible. The result is Talkwheel, a company Harris founded alone, but has since built a team to include the brightest and smartest minds of Silicon Valley. In March Talkwheel added three new members including the lead architect from IBM’s Lotus Notes, who is coming on as vice president of product development.

Eleven students in Policy, Poverty and Practice (Econ 235) are acquiring valuable life skills this semester – skills that they otherwise would not be able to learn in a classroom. Students enrolled in the class are required to participate in the VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) program, a joint project of the Economics Department and the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center. The program offers free tax help to low- and moderate-income (generally $49,000 and below) families who cannot prepare their own tax returns.

Alan Cafruny, the Henry Platt Bristol Professor of International Affairs, gave an invited talk at "Eurocentrism or Euro-Crisis: A Day-long conference with Perry Anderson," at the Institute for Critical Theory, Duke University, on March 27.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Debra Boutin gave invited talks at Hobart-William Smith College and at Skimore College over break. In her talk "Graphs and Symmetry" Boutin introduced graphs and their symmetries with the goal of helping the audience to develop intuition about the subject. She then showed some of the questions and results that have arisen in this area in recent years. Boutin's talk at Skidmore College was part of their annual Pi Mu Epsilon ceremony to induct new members. Pi Mu Epsilon is the national mathematics honor society.

John Stauffer, author and professor of English and American literature and language at Harvard University, will present a lecture titled “Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and the Great Books” at Hamilton College on Tuesday, March 30, at 4:15 p.m., in the Science Center’s Kennedy Auditorium. He will discuss his bestselling book Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln (Twelve 2009). The lecture is free and open to the public.

Professor of Biology Sue Ann Miller has published an invited commentary titled “Integrative anatomy courses serve undergraduate and preclinical anatomy curricula” in the March/April issue of the journal, Anatomical Sciences Education, a publication of the American Association of Anatomists. Her Letter to the Editor was published in “early view” on-line on February 22 and is now in print copy [Anat Sci Educ 3:105–106 (2010)].