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The students of Professor Gary Wyckoff's Topics in Public Policy classes tackled the public health care system on Sunday, May 4. Students were divided into two groups and charged with the task of devising a plan to cover the nation's uninsured and growing medical costs. Both group's plan had to be specific, comprehensive, fiscally sound, ethically defensible and politically feasible.

HAVOC hosted 35 children from the Neighborhood Center in Utica for a Spring Fling event on Saturday, May 3. Participants planted flowers in decorated pots, made Mother's Day gifts, played relay races and enjoyed lunch in Commons. The Neighborhood Center children come to campus about three times each semester for fun-filled events and meaningful interaction with Hamilton students.

An article by Professor of Mathematics Robert Kantrowitz '82 appears in the May 2008 issue of the American Mathematical Monthly. The paper, "Yet another proof of Minkowski's inequality," co-authored with Michael M. Neumann of Mississippi State University, offers an alternative proof, based on convexity, to a celebrated, century-old inequality attributed to the German mathematician Hermann Minkowski (1864-1909).

Students participating in the Program in Washington toured the U.S. Department of State on April 30. While the group was able to catch a glimpse of State Department officials at work while passing through the first floor, the tour focused mainly on the eighth floor Diplomatic Reception Rooms. The Secretary of State meets with hundreds of dignitaries, both foreign and domestic, in these rooms each year.

Hilary King '05 has been awarded a Fulbright Grant to the United Kingdom. She will undertake a year of graduate study in the anthropology of development and social transformation at the University of Sussex in order to learn how anthropological theory can best inform economic initiatives. Ginny Dosch, Hamilton's Student Fellowships Coordinator, says the United Kingdom is the most competitive country for Fulbrights, with 465 applications for 12 awards.

Hamilton's debate team successfully competed in a tournament at Wellesley College on April 11-12. Mallory Joel '11 and Sarah Krieger '11 won 4th best novice team and Rouvan Mahmud won 8th best novice speaker. Also in attendance at the Wellesley tournament were Chris Smith '11, Jimmy Kirwan '10, Jonathan Neville '10, Chris Lloyd '09, Murtaza Jafri '08 and Jessica Yau '08. The following weekend Philip Fraccola '08 and Murtaza Jafri competed in nationals at MIT. This year the debate team attended 11 tournaments and brought home 17 awards.

The May 4 episode of Foreign Exchange, a weekly international affairs series presented to the PBS system by Oregon Public Broadcasting, features Cheng Li, William R. Kenan Professor of Government and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Hamilton alumni who are experts in health care will be on campus Sunday, May 4, to critique Hamilton students' proposed solutions to the U.S. health insurance system. The critique will take place in the Red Pit at 7:30 p.m. The students are from two of Professor Gary Wyckoff's "Topics in Public Policy" classes.  Alumni panelists are Karen Volmer '94, assistant professor of health policy and administration, Penn State University; David Duggan '75, professor of medicine at SUNY Health Science Center at Syracuse; and Tim Finan '75, president and CEO, Olean General Hospital, Olean, New York.

Hong Gang Jin, the William R. Kenan Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures, will serve as president of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL) for 2008-2009 and 2009-2010. She was previously vice-president. Jin will work with an executive board of seven members and 18 delegate assembly representatives of different language associations.

An essay by Professor of French Roberta Krueger has been published in the paperback edition of A Companion to Chrétien de Troyes. Krueger’s essay is titled “Philomena: Brutal Transitions and Courtly Transformations in Chrétien's Old French Translation.” Edited by Norris J. Lacy and Joan Tasker Grimbert, the book is published by Boydell & Brewer, Inc.