All News

Hamilton College has received a record number of applications for admission to the Class of 2011.  Applications have been received from 4,951 prospective students, a 16 percent increase over last year’s final number, and 350 more than the college’s previous record of 4,601 set in 2001.

Monk Rowe, the Joe Williams Director of the Hamilton College Jazz Archive, presented a film program at the International Association of Jazz Educators Conference in New York City in January. The concert documentary, "Joe Williams: A Portrait in Song," was screened for an enthusiastic audience on Saturday, Jan. 13. The late Joe Williams H'89, was filmed in concert with the Count Basie Orchestra in Wellin Hall in September, 1996. Co-presenting with Rowe was the noted jazz film maker, Burrill Crohn, the director of "A Portrait in Song." Norman Simmons, Joe Williams' pianist/music director, and John Levy, Joe's longtime manager, were in attendance. While in New York, Rowe also conducted an interview with author James Lincoln Collier '50.

Tori Schacht '08 conducted an interview with young British author Zadie Smith for "The Oxford Compass," while studying abroad for the 2006-07 academic year. Schacht is an English major currently spending the year studying at Mansfield College, Oxford University. Schacht met Smith at a reception after she gave a talk. The interview will be published in The Oxford Compass, a student-run literary Web site that's associated with the Oxford Student Publications Ltd. Zadie Smith has written three novels and a non-fiction book about writing, Fail Better (2006). In 2002-03 she was in the U.S. as a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University.

Professor of Chinese Hong Gang Jin published an article on Syntactic Complexity and Second Language Writing in the Journal of Chinese Language Teachers Association a refereed journal in the field of teaching Chinese as a second/foreign language. “Syntactic Complexity in Second Language Writings: A Case of Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL),” appears in Vol. 42:1, pp. 27-52.

Dean of Faculty Joseph Urgo has announced the appointment of Professor of Geosciences Eugene Domack to the J. W. Johnson Family Professor of Environmental Studies in Environmental Studies. The newly endowed chair, established this year by Hamilton alumnus and charter trustee Joel W. Johnson '65 and his wife Elizabeth B. Johnson with a $2.5 million gift, is the largest endowed professorship in the college's history. Income from the endowment will support the chairholder's compensation, benefits and a research program involving undergraduates.

The Hamilton College Classical Connections series opens its spring season on Friday, Jan. 19, with a performance by the male a cappella group Cantus 8 p.m. The performance will take place at Wellin Hall in the Schambach Center for Music and the Performing Arts.

Jon Milgrom '08 and Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Peter Zani presented a poster at the annual Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology meetings in Phoenix, Arizona (January 3-7). The poster was titled "Behavioral Responses of Lizards to a Snake Predator: What to do When Far from Safety." It was a result of research that Milgrom and Zani did this past summer in collaboration with two undergraduates from Central College in Pella, Iowa, where Zani taught previously.

Hamilton employees commemorated Martin Luther King Jr., Day on January 15 by volunteering at three non-profit agencies in the Utica area. Twenty employees spent their morning working at a Habitat for Humanity House, Jesus Christ Tabernacle of David (JCTOD) and Loretto Center. The employees, who were given work release time from Hamilton, painted, spackled and helped set up educational software at their work sites. The ninth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Service Day will take place on Saturday, Jan. 20, with students and members of the Hamilton community volunteering at additional sites.

Scientist and broadcaster Dr. David Suzuki will give the James S. Plant Distinguished Scientist Lecture at Hamilton College on Monday, Jan. 22, at 7:30 p.m. in the Chapel. His lecture, titled “The Challenge of the 21st Century: Setting the Real Bottom Line,” is free and open to the public.

Scientist and broadcaster Dr. David Suzuki will give the James S. Plant Distinguished Scientist Lecture at Hamilton College on Monday, Jan. 22, at 7:30 p.m. in the Chapel. His lecture, titled “The Challenge of the 21st Century: Setting the Real Bottom Line,” is free and open to the public.