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Professor of Classics Shelley Haley spent two weeks in June in Kansas City, where she graded and collected samples for the AP Latin: Latin Literature and Vergil exams.  Later in the month she participated in the program of the 85th annual meeting and 61st annual Institute of the American Classical League. She was a respondent to the plenary panel dealing with the College Board's decision to eliminate the AP Latin Literature exam option after the 2009 administration. Haley also presented a paper titled, "Fair Maiden, Fair Maiden" Skin Color Terminology in Roman Literature and Latin Inscriptions," and she reprised her role as Anna Julia Cooper for the vice-president's panel, "Representing Our Ancestors."

Hamilton alumni participate in annual giving at extraordinary levels. For the 27th consecutive year, more than half of the Hamilton alumni family contributed to their alma mater! Doing so expresses that alumni recall their own time of transformation on the Hill and want to perpetuate that experience in the lives of Hamilton students today and tomorrow. All those who work at Hamilton offer their sincere and deep appreciation for all the good things that your gifts make possible.

Local history can be difficult to incorporate into the needs of the present. In the Mohawk Valley and particularly in Utica, the debate continues over whether historic sites should be preserved or the often dormant, rundown buildings should be demolished to support needed economic development. While spectacular renovation efforts on buildings such as the Hotel Utica and the Stanley Theatre take showcase preservation, many abandoned buildings in Utica are demolished to promote relevant modern use of the space, or because they are potential targets of arson. Arson is the top destroyer of historic buildings, and this year, 22 have been confirmed in the Utica area.

Seven prints by photographer Sylvia de Swaan, who is working with Gregory Huffaker '09 on an Emerson grant this summer, have been purchased by Colgate University's Picker Gallery for their permanent collection. The photographs are part of de Swaan's "Return" series. The curator is Joachim Homann.

Austin Briggs, the Hamilton B. Tompkins Professor of English emeritus, attended the XXI International James Joyce Conference held at the Universite Francois-Rabelais in Tours, France, June 15-20. In addition to co-moderating two reading sessions he delivered a paper, "Joyce's Nymph of the Yews and the Controversy over the Nude in Painting and Sculpture," on the panel "Joycean Erotics" that he organized and chaired. At the conference, the tustees of the International James Joyce Foundation nominated Briggs for membership on the board.

Aster plants produce and release a chemical known as germacrene D, which comes in (+) and (-) forms called enantiomers that differ in terms of how they interact with light. Some insects are able to distinguish between the two enantiomers using their olfactory receptor neuron, and a great deal of evidence indicates that female pearl crescent butterflies (Phyciodes tharos) prefer to lay their eggs on the underside of aster leaves containing higher amounts of (-)-germacrene D. Amy Klockowski '09 (Rome, N.Y.) is working with Silas D. Childs Professor of Chemistry Robin Kinnel to show unambiguously that it is (-)-germacrene D and not (+)-germacrene D that acts as the chemical stimulus for egg laying in pearl crescents.

George Shields, the Winslow Professor of Chemistry, published seven papers, some with Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Karl Kirschner and others with 14 current students and alumni during the 2007-08 academic year. 

The HOPE VI Project in Utica, which provided $11.5 million in federal funds to restructure public housing for low-income residents, will end this September. Stephanie Wong '10 (Amherst, Mass.) is working this summer as an assistant with Hamilton's program evaluation of the project, which is supervised by Judith Owens-Manley, associate director for community research at the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center. Wong received a Community-Based Research Fellowship from the Levitt Center to work with Owens-Manley in the final stage of evaluating the program, assembling, organizing and presenting the materials Hamilton has collected over HOPE VI's five-year tenure in the area.

Last fall, Maura Donovan '09 (Haverhill, Mass.) went to South Africa to spend a semester studying at the International Human Rights Exchange, based at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She studied human rights and interned at the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, a small human rights organization that operates out of Johannesburg. "It was my first peek into human rights work," she says.

Niagara County Assistant District Attorney Charles F. Pitarresi '80 has announced his candidacy for the office of Niagara Falls City Judge, which goes to vote in November. The office became vacant in November 2007 after the N.Y.S. Court of Appeals dismissed Robert M. Restaino for incarcerating 46 courtroom spectators when none stepped forward as the owner of an unruly and disruptive cell phone.