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Hamilton College is noted in an Atlantic Monthly article, "Crying in the Kitchen Over Princeton," (Atlantic Unbound, 9/7/04) about the college admissions process. The author, Gregg Easterbrook, writes that "in the scheme of things, the difference between attending a prestigious name-brand college or a lesser-known second-tier college is miniscule...In the last 50 years the top schools have changed very little, while the next 100-200 schools have improved dramatically." Easterbrook wrote, "If you went to Illinois Wesleyan years back, you wouldn't have gotten an almost Harvard-quality education. But if you go to Illinois Wesleyan today, the education you'll receive is almost the same as what you'd get at Harvard. The same is true for Hamilton...and a lot of other schools. They've improved dramatically and gradually the word is getting out."

The Spring/Summer 2004 issue of On Campus With Women, a publication of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, features Hamilton's ACCESS Project, an educational, social service and career program that assists low-income parents in obtaining a higher education. ACCESS director Vivyan Adair wrote a feature article about how welfare reform is jeopardizing poor women's access to higher education, and two ACCESS students wrote a piece about their experience with the program. Nolita Clark and Shannon Stanfield are both ACCESS students who have since matriculated at Hamilton. "As two students currently enrolled in a unique program at Hamilton College called The ACCESS Project, we understand how higher education has changed our lives and those of our peers," they wrote in the article. "Our individual experiences are typical of both the struggle and determination that have marked our lives and the lives of our colleagues who are all working student parents. Taken together these narratives represent both the breadth and commonalities of our experiences as low-income, single-mother students."  

Cheng Li, the William R. Kenan Professor of Government, was interviewed by the BBC World Service on September 7.  Li discussed Chinese leadership and domestic politics.

Professor of History Maurice Isserman published a letter to the editor in USA Today (8/31/04) concerning New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's decision to deny anti-war protesters access to Central Park during the Republican National Convention. In his letter, Isserman recalled two instances in his youth where he attended rallies in Central Park. "Both events were completely peaceful, demonstrating the value and enduring strength of the American commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly," he wrote. "New York's current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, could have learned something from the history of mass non-violent protest in his city... Instead, by denying anti-war demonstrators an acceptable venue for gathering together in peaceful protest, he has almost guaranteed the outbreak of violence in the streets of his city during the Republican National Convention," said Isserman.

Assistant Professor of Theater Mark Cryer's performance of "99 Questions You've Always Wanted to Ask an African American" at the Edinburgh (Scotland) Fringe Theatre Festival received a favorable review in Scotland's daily newspaper The Scotsman. The Edinburgh Festival is the biggest and best known arts festival in the world. The review says: "Cryer is a skilled and likeable performer, and it’s to his credit that none of his characters feel cliched. That, of course, is part of the point: that we all need to see people, not pigmentation; individuals not types."

Two book reviews written by Hamilton College Professor of History Maurice Isserman were featured in The Chicago Tribune (Aug. 29, 2004). Isserman reviewed Mona Z. Smith’s Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee (Faber and Faber) and Nadine Cohadas' Queen: The Life and Music of Dinah Washington (Pantheon) for the daily newspaper. Both Canada Lee and Dinah Washington were African-American pioneers in the world of entertainment, helping to achieve equal rights for African-Americans in both movies and music in the 1940s.

Young Han '06 was interviewed for an Associated Press article, "Students fighting for right to register to vote in college towns."

Associate Professor of Religious Studies Steve Humphries-Brooks was interviewed for a TV Guide article (8/22/04) about a recent surge in the number of religious-themed movies, due in part to the popularity of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Humphries-Brooks said, "People may not identify with the church, but they still see Jesus as a significant figure they wish to explore. The interest was latent with all the Armageddon movies, The Matrix in particular. The Passion made it blatant. And The Da Vinci Code offered an alternative view of Christianity," Humphries-Brooks said. He teaches "The Celluloid Savior," about the depiction of Jesus in movies, and is writing a book, Cinematic Savior: Hollywood's Making of the American Christ from DeMille's King of Kings to Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.  

Josh Simpson '72 was interviewed for a Chicago Tribune article (8/22/04) about his path to becoming a glass artisan after pursuing a more traditional career as an occupational therapist. Simpson will be exhibiting his glass work at the American Craft Exposition in Chicago, one of the nation's top fine crafts shows. He is known for his Planets, orbs of clear glass ranging from a few inches to more than a foot in diameter, their interiors filled with elements that resemble mountains, glaciers, oceans, continents and reefs of coral.

Judith Owens-Manley, Associate Director for Community Research for the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center, was interviewed by the Utica Observer Dispatch for an August 22 front-page article on poverty in the city.  Owens-Manley commented in “In city of need, poor feel abandoned – Utica & Poverty: Tough Lives, Bright Hopes” on poverty’s effects on children and the shrinking safety net of available federal funds to help those whose incomes are too small to provide for basic living necessities.