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Seventeen Kirkland College alumnae, some who are professional artists and others who pursue their art as an avocation, will participate in an exhibition during Hamilton's reunion weekend, May 31 – June 3, in the Emerson Gallery. The show titled “Inspirations” includes a wide range of works including paintings, sculpture, etchings, serigraphs, drawings, and photography using a variety of materials. The art represents a wide range of techniques and styles - from representational and narrative to experimental, enigmatic and challenging.

An independent task force established by the Council on Foreign Relations to examine changes in China and to evaluate what these changes mean for China and for the U.S.-China relationship has published its first report in the form of a book titled U.S.-China Relations: An Affirmative Agenda, A Responsible Course. Cheng Li, William R. Kenan Professor of Government, is one of the task force members responsible for the report. The task force is chaired by Dennis Blair, former president and CEO of the Institute for Defense Analyses, and Carla Hills, chairman and CEO of Hills & Company and the former U.S. trade representative.

Three Hamilton faculty members have been appointed to named professorships, effective July 1. Professor of Chinese Hong Gang Jin has been appointed The William R. Kenan Professor; Associate Professor of Philosophy Marianne Janack was named The Sidney Wertimer Professor; and Professor of History Maurice Isserman has been appointed The James L. Ferguson Professor.

Associate Professor of History Lisa Trivedi has been named to the board of directors of AsiaNetwork. It is a consortium of more than 170 North American colleges that strives to strengthen the role of Asian Studies within the framework of liberal arts education to help prepare succeeding generations of undergraduates for a world in which Asian societies play prominent roles in an ever more interdependent world.

Assistant Professor of English Katherine Terrell presented a paper titled "Orality and the Borders of Identity in the Old English 'Andreas'" at the 42nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, held at Western Michigan University on May 10-13. The paper addressed the complex symbolic interplay of food and speech in this Old English poem, arguing that the poem treats the mouth as the body’s most significant threshold, where the power of God to work through man manifests in the intersections of what is consumed and what is said.

Karen S. Brewer, professor of chemistry, and Mary B. O'Neill, director of the Quantitative Literacy Center, participated in the 11th annual meeting of the Northeast Consortium for Quantitative Literacy at Vassar College in April with a presentation about the process of developing a proposal to strengthen the QLit. Requirement at Hamilton College. They discussed the current requirement and highlighted the QLit. Committee's role in addressing the task of cultivating students' comfort level with numerical data and symbolic information while incorporating the college's goals, resources, and vision.

Hamilton College volunteers with the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program calculated tax refunds for low-income residents of Oneida County totaling more than three times the dollar amount refunded in 2004, the year the program began.

An emphasis on diplomacy and strong recommendations on the resolution of world conflicts in Iraq, Iran and Israel among other global challenges, was the focus of Richard Haass' remarks at Hamilton College’s Commencement on Sunday, May 20. Haass directed policy planning in the Bush administration at the State Department, reporting to Colin Powell, until June 2003. He is now president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The French Ministry of National Education, Teaching, and Research has promoted John C. O'Neal, professor of French, to the rank of "officier" in the Ordre des Palmes Académiques. He was named a "chevalier" (or knight) in 1998. (The three ranks in this order are "chevalier," "officier," and "commandeur.") Founded in 1808 by Napoleon, the order originally recognized teachers but later included other figures in the fields of letters, the arts, and the sciences. The promotion signed by the French minister of education, Gilles de Robien, and dated February 1, 2007 awards O'Neal for his "services rendus à la culture française" (services rendered to French culture). The envelope containing the promotion arrived recently via the French embassy for cultural services in New York City.

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, will deliver the Commencement address at Hamilton College on Sunday, May 20, at 10:30 a.m. in the Margaret Bundy Scott Field House. The 455 members of the class of 2007 will receive bachelor's degrees.