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On October 1, a new era in Hamilton community service was ushered in with the official opening in the Chapel of Hamilton’s new Community Outreach and Opportunity Project (COOP), a coalition of students and faculty that aims to increase Hamilton’s involvement with community service. The ceremony featured short addresses by staff members involved in COOP, as well as keynote speaker Steve Culbertson '79, president and CEO of Youth Service America, an organization dedicated to increasing availability of service and volunteer projects to young people.

Pianist Dick Hyman and guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli headed up a sextet of outstanding jazz musicians during Fallcoming Weekend 2009. The ensemble performed two sets of music on Friday, Oct. 2. The friendly acoustics of the Fillius Events Barn provided the perfect setting for this rare convergence of talent.

“I wanted to echo the lives of others who don’t get an opportunity to write,” remarked author/poet R. Dwayne Betts to the audience in the Science Center's Kennedy Auditorium, for his story was also “the story of people who go nameless.” It soon became clear that, in Betts’ experience, literature was not merely a form of escapism during turbulent times but rather a unifier of people past and present, a way to connect.

Two reviews by Jay G. Williams '54, the Walcott-Bartlett Professor of Religious Studies, appeared recently in the fall issue of The Quest. He reviewed Joseph Chiltoon Pearce's The Death of Religion and the Rebirth of the Spirit and What is Hinduism? Modern Adventures into a Profound Faith compiled by the editors of Hinduism Today. Earlier in the year The Quest also published two other reviews by Williams: Shaikh Sharfuddin Maneri's Letters from a Sufi Teacher, trans. Baijnath Singh, and Catherine Albanese's A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion.

Michael Evans '05 will present a lecture about Full Court Peace, his peace-promoting organization centered around basketball, on Friday, Oct. 2, at 4 p.m. in the Science Center’s Kennedy Auditorium.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Kathryn Parker Almanas was invited to present a lecture on her work at Bard College on Sept. 29 as part of the school’s Visiting Artist series. Almanas’ work can be seen at her Web site: www.kathrynparkeralmanas.com.

The Hamilton Environmental Action Group (HEAG), launched this semester's campaign to encourage sustainability and raise environmental awareness within the Hamilton community on September 21. The campaign, known as Green Week, was designed both to promote a sense of individual environmental responsibility and to educate students and faculty members to environmental problems on campus that have global implications.

The Ecology class made its annual trip up Whiteface Mountain on Sunday, Sept. 27. Despite low cloud cover, the group was able to study changes in forest composition and size at different elevations, the dwarfed trees (krummholtz) near the mountain top, and the vegetation of the alpine zone. The class is taught jointly by Associate Professor of Biology Bill Pfitsch and Ernest Williams, the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Biology.

Hamilton hosted a Gospel Music Celebration on Saturday, Sept. 26, in the Chapel as the culminating event of the 11th Annual Gospel Choir Workshop. Hamilton students and other college community members, as well as gospel choirs from other local colleges and churches, comprised the choir.

Arthur Levitt Jr., former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and proponent of tougher corporate accounting standards, will present a lecture titled “Regulation in the Financial Markets,” on Friday, Oct. 2, at 4:10 p.m. in the Kirner-Johnson Auditorium at Hamilton. It is free and open to the public.