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Martin Cain ’13 was able to do something this summer that many professional writers twice his age can only dream about.  He was selected to attend the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, sponsored by Middlebury College, in Ripton, Vt.  Participants must apply and be accepted, and attend as either nonfiction, fiction or poetry writers. Cain attended the poetry section and was the youngest poet at the highly selective conference. This year there were 1691 applicants for approximately 200 spots.  Bread Loaf has been called the “oldest and most prestigious writing conference in the country” by The New Yorker.

She dropped in on Sunday morning, unpacked, made a nuisance of herself all day and then left by evening. Hurricane Irene made a somewhat uneventful visit to Hamilton College on Aug. 29, bringing drenching rain and strong winds but leaving without serious damage.

Dean of Faculty Patrick Reynolds announced the promotion of five Hamilton faculty members to the rank of professor.  Todd Franklin, philosophy; Marianne Janack, philosophy; Katherine Kuharic, art; Bruce Walczyk, dance and movement studies; and Steven Yao, English and creative writing, were promoted effective July 1.

The fourth annual Hamilton Serves took place on Wednesday, Aug. 24, with the entire first-year class and new transfer students going out to volunteer at 61 community organizations. Amy James, COOP director, noted this year was a milestone as now “every student on campus will have gone through the program.”

Hamilton begins its Bicentennial Year this week and the campus is already bustling. First-year students have arrived and Orientation is under way.

Geoscience students Natalie Elking ’12 and Manique Talaia-Murray ’12 conducted summer research related to sediment cores from Antarctica.  Elking is working on the organic geochemistry (carbon and nitrogen isotopes) of sub ice shelf sediments and Talaia-Murray is conducting a radiocarbon dating project using microfossils. 

More than 250 members of the Class of 2015 arrived on campus a week early to take part in pre-orientation programs. Adirondack Adventure (AA) and Outreach Adventure (OA) give incoming students the chance to spend a week getting to know their new classmates in an informal setting, interacting on an equal basis and learning something new before New Student Orientation begins for the whole class on Aug. 20.

Adirondack Adventure (AA), Hamilton's eight-day outdoor program for incoming students, and its sister program Outreach Adventure (OA), will welcome members of the class of 2015 on Friday, Aug. 12, for pre-orientation.

Christie Bell Vilsack K ’72 recently announced her intention to run for Congress in Iowa’s new Fourth Congressional District.

Over the weekend of July 29,  Dan Mermelstein’14, Carmen Montagnon ’13 and Alvin Wu ’13 presented their research at the 10th Molecular Educational Research Consortium in Undergraduate Computational chemistRY (MERCURY) conference at Bucknell University. The three students have been working this summer in the laboratory of Assistant Professor of Chemistry Adam Van Wynsberghe.