All News

Five students in the Hamilton College Public Policy department posed a question at the outset of their thesis presentation on May 2: are the columnists you read and talking heads you watch better than a coin flip?

Miners may be most comfortable underground, but that was not evident when Scott Hand '64 spoke on the Hill on April 27.  Hand, currently the executive chairman of the board of the Royal Nickel Company in Canada, previously worked for International Nickel and shared his views on Hamilton, the mining industry and the international economy.

James Robbins came to Hamilton to talk about someone no Hamilton student wants to be: the individuals last in their class. Robbins was talking in particular about the “Goats,” men who graduated last in their class from West Point and ended up fighting in the Civil War. He drew extensively from his book, Last in their Class: Custer, Pickett and the Ghosts of West Point (2006) in providing an often-humorous overview of America's most famous Goats.

A packed Red Pit on Thursday March 3, was privileged to hear a “local boy done good,” as Professor Steve Orvis described him. Les Roberts, a native of the Syracuse area and now a human rights epidemiologist, visited Hamilton to talk about three of his conflict surveys.  Roberts led a transfixed crowd through a brief history of violence in war and then on to examples he saw firsthand: Zimbabwe, the Central African Republic, and what is now Congo.  

February 22 was the 150th anniversary of Jefferson Davis's announcement of the Confederate cabinet and Abraham Lincoln's enunciation of his goals for America at a speech in Philadelphia. It was also the date on which Yale University Professor David Blight visited Hamilton to present a retrospective on American views of the Civil War. By examining a pair of 20th century authors who wrote on the topic, Blight illustrated long-term trends on the way Americans think about the Civil War and the nation.

Naomi Wallace, playwright and author of Slaughter City, spoke at Hamilton on February 15 as part of the Tolles Lecture Series. As a guest of the theater department, Wallace discussed the ethical obligations of theater performers. At times personal and other times political, Wallace informed and challenged the more than 100 guests in the Chapel. Her speech focused on the concept of “hospitality” in theater along with issues of race and class.

Sean Safford describes the difference between Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Youngstown, Ohio, as the difference between a “mediocre Billy Joel song” and a “really awesome Bruce Springsteen song.” He observes that the significant difference could be found in the civic structure of the two cities

A few dozen Hamilton students taking Government Department courses were treated to a small-group question and answer session with Sacerdote Great Names Speaker Dr. Condoleezza Rice on Nov. 1, prior to her lecture. Students from Distinguished Visiting Professor Maj. John Dehn's Seminar in War Powers Class joined Henry Platt Bristol Professor of International Affairs Alan Cafruny's international relations classes to ask questions of Dr. Rice in a half-hour session. The conversation was ranging, covering many international policy issues and a handful of domestic issues.