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Assistant Professor of Africana Studies Nigel Westmaas gave an invited talk on Haiti at Syracuse University on Jan. 28. His presentation at the forum organized by the Africa Initiative Project (Department of African-American studies) of Syracuse University was titled “Haiti: Historical Reflections on the narrative of Haitian poverty in the wake of the Earthquake.”

Mary-Kay Gamel, a professor of classics and theatre at the University of California, Santa Cruz, will present the Winslow Classics Lecture at Hamilton on Monday, Feb. 1, at 4:10 p.m., in the Kennedy Auditorium (Science Center). Her lecture, titled “Revising ‘Authenticity’ In Staging Ancient Drama,” is free and open to the public.

Late on a January afternoon, amid a bitter snowstorm that engulfed Hamilton’s campus, the Dwight Lounge of the Bristol Center was alive with activity. Young men and women gathered in the large space and began to fill the seats that spread out around a large podium. They awaited a conference that would prove to be stimulating, engaging, and at times even lighthearted: "Outsourcing National Security: The Law and Politics of Military Contracting."

It was 15 years ago this month that Café Opus – then a small but determined business that employed only 5-6 students – slid open its door for the first time in McEwen Hall. Of course, a lot has changed during those 15 years: not only does Opus now employ 35-45 students, but it has also expanded into a second location – known appropriately as CO2 – in the Science Center Atrium. Today, the privately owned café is a local culinary mainstay and an integral part of the Hamilton community. As Sarah Goldstein, one of the owners, remarked “Back then I never imagined that it could be like this.”

“I am not a social scientist,” explained author Dorothy Allison from behind the lectern in the Kennedy Auditorium. Her carefully chosen words and thoughtful enunciation cushioned in a soft Southern twang, she sounded like a narrator come-to-life from one of her novels. “I make a living as a storyteller,” she said. “And writing is about taking great emotional risk to put what you know is true on the page.” As she began to recount her difficult past, it became clear that Allison is long familiar with that feeling of emotional risk, of desperation – and it has been her life struggle to set forth her own personal truths.

During 2010 Susan Mason is acting as the subject matter expert and instructor for a series of live, instructor-led virtual lessons in workplace communications for the American Management Association. Using the Adobe Connect platform, Mason uses online real time chat, voiceover Internet protocols, slides, polls and white board applications to deliver her lessons. Mason is director of the College’s Education Studies program.

Craig Calhoun, New York University professor of sociology, will give the Hansmann Lecture at Hamilton on Thursday, Jan. 28, at 4:10 p.m., in the Science Center Kennedy Auditorium. The lecture, titled “Rethinking Secularism,” is part of the spring 2010 Humanities Forum and is free and open to the public.

Co-Chair of the Center for Law and Counter Terrorism and former Federal Prosecutor Andrew McCarthy presented a lecture on a “New Framework for National Security” on Jan. 26 in the Fillius Events Barn. McCarthy gave the first talk of the semester in the Levitt Center Speaker Series.

Associate Professor of History Lisa Trivedi gave a paper titled "Won't You Be My Neighbor?: reflections on Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." at St. Lawrence University on Jan. 22. Trivedi was invited to speak by St. Lawrence for Peace, a campus advocacy group that is part of the college's Global Education Initiative and that organized a week of events celebrating Dr. King's life and work.

Possible negative effects of political encroachment into monetary affairs was the focus of a Reuters article titled “Bernanke tussle deals new blow to Fed autonomy” in which Professor of Economics Ann Owen was quoted. "What you don't want is the FOMC [Federal Open Market Committee] thinking about political repercussions of monetary policy."