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Can practicing speeches in Second Life reduce speech anxiety in real life? Jim Helmer, Oral Communication Center coordinator, and Carl Rosenfield, instructional technology specialist, addressed that question in a presentation at the National Association of Communication Centers annual conference at DePauw University on March 12. Helmer and Rosenfield reported on a pilot project conducted in Helmer’s ORCOM 100 class to explore the potential of using the 3-D virtual world of Second Life as a “space” for students to practice oral presentations. A key question was whether practicing in Second Life might help apprehensive students feel more comfortable when they faced their real-world audience.

Local undergraduate and graduate students are invited to attend a conference, “Relationship 101: Finding True Love in Today’s World” on Saturday, April 10, from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., in the Kirner–Johnson Building at Hamilton College. The conference goals are to revolutionize how people understand the role of sexuality in their personal lives and in society, to explain the many consequences of the “hook-up” culture and to teach what it means to have a healthy dating relationship.

Hamilton was recently mentioned in a Washington Post blog post titled, “Green Graduation Gowns." The post, which is part of the “Campus Overload” blog maintained by Washington Post reporter Jenna Johnson, is about a green initiative by Harper College, which will dress its graduates on commencement day in biodegradable gowns.

Hamilton President Joan Hinde Stewart and Philip Stewart visited the Hamilton College Junior Year in France Program in Paris, France, on a mild spring evening on March 18. They shared their memories of study abroad in France with Resident Director Cheryl Morgan and students currently studying with the Hamilton program.

Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies Brent Plate gave a lecture titled "Blasphemous Art in a Secular Age" at Lehigh University in March. The lecture stems from his 2006 book Blasphemy: Art that Offends, and offers an argument about the shifting status of blasphemy and blasphemous art, into the modern age. The lecture was sponsored by several departments at Lehigh, including religion, philosophy, art, history and the Lehigh University Art Galleries.

Eugene Domack, the J.W. Johnson Family Professor of Environmental Studies, will present “Impact of the Fifth Largest Earthquake in History on a Developed Latin American Country: the February 2010 Concepción ‘Teremoto’” on Thursday, April 8, at 7 p.m., in the Science Center’s Kennedy Auditorium. Domack recently returned from Chile where he did volunteer work in the aftermath of the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of Maule, Chile, on Feb. 27.

Jeffrey Immelt P'10, chairman and CEO of General Electric Company (GE), will deliver the Commencement address at Hamilton College on Sunday, May 23, at 10:30 a.m. in the Margaret Bundy Scott Field House.

Lydia Rono ’11 has been awarded a Davis Peace Project Fellowship program grant of $10,000. Through her project, titled Education for Peace, she hopes to build one secondary school classroom and one rest room in Barekeiwo Village in Kenya, thus qualifying Barekeiwo High School for Kenyan government educational funding. This would supplement the one classroom and one staff room already built by the community.

Chris Hedges’ April 5 lecture encompassed a large range of topics, from the United States’ political system to the economic crisis to global warming. He spoke within the context of large corporations’ overwhelming power over nearly every aspect of culture and society. At times, Hedges’ speech was nearly apocalyptic. And yet, it seems somehow fitting that he began with a description of Michael Jackson’s funeral.

Professor of Communication Catherine Waite Phelan published four poems in the July 2009 issue of Et Cetera: A Review of General Semantics. Her poems, “The Tree’s Song,” “The Implicit Conversation,” “The Source of Words” and “A Child Struggling with Language,” explore the nexus of language and thought. Et Cetera is an interdisciplinary journal published quarterly by the Institute of General Semantics.