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Douglas Weldon, Stone Professor of Psychology, presented a poster in Atlanta at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience with Carlyn Patterson ’06 and Erica Colligan ’06.  The poster was titled “Neuron Activity in the Rat Superior Colliculus during Reward Magnitude Task Performance.”  The paper showed that some neurons in the midbrain of the rat show cellular activity that differs when the animals retrieve high versus low reward.  The context of the work is that this area of the brain is known to be involved in sensory processing and in generating visuo-motor orientations and is thereby thought to be involved in the neural basis of attention.  The data are meaningful in suggesting that the brain area participates in processing information about significant events.

Philip Klinkner, the James S. Sherman Associate Professor of Government, was quoted in a Bloomberg.com article titled “Bush Emphasizes Economy as Messages on Security, Values Weaken” (Oct. 6, 2006). Commenting on the Bush Administration’s effort to credit Republicans for an improving economy, Klinkner stated “You go with what you’ve got, and right now the economy is the best thing they’ve got going.” The article suggested that the administration’s effort to focus on the economy was a result of the “difficulty in making moral values and the war on terror central issues…” in the upcoming mid-term elections.

Assistant Professor of Psychology Jean Burr recently presented a paper at the Annual Licensing Seminar of the National Association for Regulatory Administration in Oklahoma City, OK.  This organization oversees the licensing of the nation's human care facilities, such as child care and adult assisted living facilities.  The paper, which Burr co-wrote with Rob Grunewald, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank, focused on the economic benefits of publicly-funded early childhood education programs. Burr and Grunewald presented evidence that well-constructed early childhood intervention programs can create an 18 percent annual return on investment over a 20-year period. They also discussed the policy implications for these findings and some of the current efforts being made to motivate the business community to invest in early childhood education. The paper is available at the Federal Reserve Web site at http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/studies/earlychild/.

The Hamilton Environmental Action Group (HEAG) is sponsoring Green Week from October 16-21. The week's activities will include a Farmer's Market and a film, "The Future of Food." Trash Mountain, on Martin's Way, is a tangible reminder of the enormity of student waste. HEAG estimates that since January, Hamilton has generated more than 630 tons of waste, costing more than $50,000.

Visual artist Shelley Niro, a Mohawk woman and member of the Six Nations Reserve, Turtle Clan, showed several of her films on October 17 in the Science Center Auditorium. Niro, whose photography is now on display in the “Native Perspectives” exhibit in the Emerson Gallery, presented two short experimental films and clips from two longer films. Her films presented Native people in a variety of ways, sometimes humorously and other times very seriously, and her style encompassed both experimental and more conventional narrative-style films.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Peter Zani gave an invited seminar at the Cornell Herpetological Society at Cornell University. The Herp Society is a student group dedicated to the study of reptiles and amphibians. In addition to field trips to museums and zoos (such as the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the National Zoo in D.C.), they also have a weekly seminar series with speakers from around the Northeast presenting their herpetological research. Zani's seminar was on "Relationships between locomotor performance and evolutionary fitness in side-blotched lizards, Uta stansburiana".

Mark Zupan, captain of the U.S. Quadriplegic Rugby Team and star of the critically acclaimed documentary Murderball, spoke at Hamilton on October 16. This event was sponsored by the Dean of Student’s Office, The President’s Office and the Campus Activities Board.

Tim Elgren, professor of chemistry and chair of the biochemistry/molecular biology program, presented an invited lecture titled "Sol-Gel Encapsulation of Enzymes: Spectroscopic and Mechanistic Studies" at Ibaraki University in Mito, Japan. The lecture was presented at the Second Annual Japan-China Crossover Science Symposium, a symposium initiated to facilitate exchanges between researchers in different fields of biology, chemistry, and physics. Elgren was one of only three scientists invited from the West. The lecture focused on the recent work of students in his lab and work resulting from a year-long sabbatical leave at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. The focus of Elgren's research is currently the preparation, stabilization, and characterization of novel catalytic bio-materials. The "crossover" goals of the symposium were achieved for many participants, including Elgren, who will begin to collaborate on new projects with two Japanese scientists.

An essay by Professor of Mathematics Robert Kantrowitz and Mary B. O'Neill, academic support coordinator and director of the Quantitative Literacy Center, was published by The Mathematical Association of America in the recent volume Current Practices in Quantitative Literacy. The essay is titled "The Quantitative Literacy Program at Hamilton College" and outlines the history and development of Hamilton's quantitative literacy program. It explains the present quantitative literacy requirement at Hamilton and details the operation of the quantitative literacy center. This issue is part of the MAA Notes series and "presents a wide sampling of efforts being made on campuses across the country to achieve our common goal of having a quantitatively literate citizenry."

Elizabeth Economy, the CV Starr Senior Fellow and Director for Asian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, presented a lecture titled “The Environmental Challenges to China’s Future” on Monday, Oct. 16 in the Kirner-Johnson Auditorium. Dr. Economy, who is an expert in Chinese foreign and domestic policy, U.S.-China relations and global environmental issues, spoke about the current environmental situation in China and how the nation’s people and government are reacting. The event was part of the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center’s fall 2006 speaker series.