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The Utica Observer-Dispatch recalled the friendship between the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, founder of the Hamilton-Oneida Academy, and Skenandoa, chief of the Oneida Indians, in an editorial titled “We must not forget our first allies” (8/6/10). This day marks the 233rd anniversary of the Battle of Oriskany, one of the bloodiest battles of the American Revolution.

In a chemistry lab, Eric Kuenstner ’12 and Jack Trieu ’11 place a round-bottom flask on an instrument called a rotovap. With a push of a button the flask begins spinning, making the solution flow from the flask through coiled tubes. “It always makes me feel like a mad scientist,” Kuenstner laughs, and Trieu nods agreement. But the result of this seemingly diabolical processing is hardly sinister; the students are looking to find the most favorable conditions for a [2,3] sigmatropic rearrangement to occur.

The Ninth Annual National MERCURY Conference on Computational Chemistry, devoted solely to undergraduates who are working on research projects in computational chemistry, was held at Hamilton from Aug. 1 through Aug. 3. The program offered an opportunity for undergraduates to learn about the breadth of research in computational chemistry, particularly in interdisciplinary topics and to discuss their work with other undergraduate computational chemists as well as some leaders in the field.

When you tell people you are spending the summer on an archaeological dig, those who have any experience with excavations begin to tell you how it will affect your daily life.

Professor of English and Creative Writing Doran Larson published an essay “Writing Behind the Wall” in The Chronicle of Higher Education (8/1/10). The piece details Larson’s experiences in teaching creative writing at a maximum security prison and the related class he teaches at Hamilton, “20th Century American Prison Writing.”

Pablo Picasso once said, “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” This summer, Eva Hunt ’11 is discovering how art is used cathartically, but for some heavier dust than Picasso’s; through internships with Project Create and The Smith Farm Center, Hunt is learning that art can be therapeutic for children and adults.

In researching and experimenting with magnetic properties, scientists use beams of neutrons with all the same spin. They ensure that the neutrons are all polarized the same way with the help of an apparatus called a helium-3 polarizer. Jake Zappala ’12 is engineering a helium-3 polarizer test system for researching the diagnostic tools used in the polarization process.

For Olivia Wolfgang-Smith ’11, the “slush pile” of unsolicited manuscripts is only barely a metaphor. Working at the literary magazine The Missouri Review, Wolfgang-Smith pores over 30 manuscripts per week, evaluating their quality. With an Emerson grant and guidance from Associate Professor of English Tina Hall, Wolfgang-Smith is learning the production process of a highly-respected literary magazine.

WAMC in Albany will feature a reading by Maurice Isserman, James L. Ferguson Professor of History, on Thursday, Aug. 5, as part of the public radio station’s Academic Minute. The new program airs each weekday at 7:37 a.m. and 3:56 p.m at 90.3 FM in the Clinton area.

Assistant Professor of English Katherine Terrell presented a paper titled "The Trojan War in the British Isles: Anglo-Scottish Conflict and the Invention of Myth" at a conference on "Recycling Myths, Inventing Nations" at the University of Wales in July. The paper examined the evolution of competing English and Scottish origin legends in the late Middle Ages, and their contribution to the development of a nationalist discourse.