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Assistant Professor of Religious Studies Abhishek Amar presented an invited lecture about the beginning of exploration and excavation of ancient religious centers on July 12 at the Deccan College Post Graduate Research Institute in Pune, India.

Max Vaickus ’12 had been coming to Hamilton long before his first year as a student on the Hill. For years, he would accompany his family each winter and summer to visit his brother Louis Vaickus ’05. The Hill’s stately buildings made an impression early on: “that’s what I thought a college was supposed to look like,” Vaickus remembers. When it was time to choose his own college, he too picked Hamilton. Now, he will soon begin a career as a medical assistant with the Boston Sports and Shoulder Center.

In its bicentennial year, Hamilton has broken all previous philanthropic records, raising $42.5 million in 2011-12 versus the past record total, $30.8 million in 2006-07. This year’s success pushed the three-year Bicentennial Initiatives campaign beyond its original goal of $117 million 16 months ahead of its scheduled conclusion. In response, the Board of Trustees in June raised the goal to $133 million.

The College conducted a large-scale emergency drill on campus on Friday, July 20, the third in a series of yearly exercises to ensure that the Hamilton Emergency Response Team (HERT) is proficient in handling emergencies utilizing the Incident Command System (ICS). “Hamilton considers these mock drills to be an important and essential part of the college’s emergency preparedness efforts,” said Director of Campus Safety Francis Manfredo.

Take a group of Hamilton employees eager to volunteer in the community, put them in a warehouse full of unused books headed for the discard pile, and what has evolved is a Community Bookshelf service project that benefits many local organizations.

Images of alphabetizing manila folders and stuffing envelopes usually come to mind when thinking of undergraduate internships, but William Godinez ’13 spends his time at work a bit differently. As an intern for the Portland Timbers Major League Soccer team, he often works one-on-one with professional soccer players, represents the team at community events, and translates information for season ticket holders

Research has found that it’s more startling to hear a single loud sound than a soft sound followed by a loud sound. This neurological phenomenon is called pre-pulse inhibition and exists so that the body can adapt to loud stimuli when it is supplied with a warning. Allison Reeder ’14 has been awarded a science summer research grant to study pre-pulse inhibition in rats under the direction of Stone Professor of Psychology Douglas Weldon.

On the eve of the completion of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, groundbreaking for the College’s new theatre and studio arts center was celebrated on Friday, July 20. The theatre and studio arts center is part of an arts complex that includes the Wellin Museum of Art, the Molly Root House and a revitalized pond and landscaping.

Students sometimes say that life at Hamilton exists in a “bubble” somewhat removed from real-world events off the Hill, but this does not hold true for Danielle Lashley ’13. She chose to spend her summer gaining valuable career experience right here on campus, by pursuing modern studio art work supported by an Emerson Foundation grant. Lashley, an art concentrator, is working with Associate Professor of Art Rebecca Murtaugh to get a taste of what life as a full- time studio artist might be like.

The  Associated Press, in an article titled “SPIN METER: ‘Middle Class’ turns fuzzy in politics,” quoted Professor of Sociology Dennis Gilbert, author of The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality. Appearing in hundreds of news outlets in print and online on July 18 and 19, the article addressed how politicians use the term “middle class” and how their definitions vary.