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Bill Purcell ’76, mayor of Nashville, Tenn., will be honored as one of nine “public officials of the year” from across the country, a prestigious award for effective leadership, by Governing magazine. David Ewing, senior vice president for government relations and community improvement at the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, nominated Purcell for the award based on the mayor’s work on education, public safety and economic development. Purcell, formerly a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives, took office in 1999 and is credited with “…Nashville’s emergence as one of the top business locales in the country” in the November issue of Governing magazine.

Associate Professor of Philosophy Todd Franklin co-edited the recently released Critical Affinities: Nietzsche and African American Thought. The book explores the multifaceted relationship between the philisophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and various dimensions of African American thought. Franklin and co-editor Jaqueline Scott focus on unmasking and understanding the root causes and radically inflected symptoms of various manifestations of cultural malaise. Franklin also contributed a chapter titled "Kindred Spirits: Nietzsche and Locke as Progenitors of Axiological Liberation."

Leide Cabral ’10 will speak as a panelist at a policy discussion on Thursday, November 2 at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. The panel, convened by The Partnership for 21st Century Skills and Citizen Schools, will discuss the skills young people need to succeed in the new global economy and the venues where they can develop these skills. The event is intended to promote new policies and practices, and the list of expected guests is impressive and diverse.

Students on the Hamilton College Semester in Washington met on Nov. 1 with Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who has served on the Court since 1994. Justice Breyer discussed the role of the Supreme Court and took questions from students. He also briefed students on Environmental Defense v. Duke Energy and Whorton v. Bochting, the two cases on which the justices were hearing oral arguments that day. After the meeting with Justice Breyer, students were in the Court for oral arguments.

On Friday and Saturday, Nov. 3 and 4, Untitled-at-Large will present SLOAN, a short satirical play about how God constantly manipulates humans for his own amusement. Cassie Magesis '07, the director and producer, chose the play because it was written and produced by her father when he was a college student. The production stars Rachel Bennek ’07, Will Flanagan ’07, Brittany Gross ’10, Abigail Miller ’07, Tori Nygren ’10, Chris Schimpf ’07, Amy Tannenbaum ’10, Eliza Timpson ’10, and Jenn Vano ’09. The play will be staged in List 104 at 8 p.m., and is free and open to the public

Hamilton's men's and women's rugby teams have both won state championships in Division III rugby and will now advance to regional play. The teams travelled to St. Lawrence for the New York State Championships on Oct. 28-29. The men's team finished the regular season with a record of 3-1 (having lost to Niagara University). The women's team finished 6-0, having outscored their opponents 223-7. In the semi-finals, the women's team hosted Canisius College and won 41-5; the team went on to beat St. Bonaventure for the state championship title. The men's team travelled up to Paul Smith's College and defeated Paul Smith's 22-12. These wins gave each team a shot at the state title. This is the first time since 1998 that both the men's and the women's teams have been crowned state champions.

Assistant Professor of Japanese Kyoko Omori contributed essays to a new book, The Modern Murasaki: Selected Works by Women Writers of Meiji Japan, 1885-1912, (ed., Rebecca L. Copeland and Melek Ortabasi, New York: Columbia University Press, 2006). Omori wrote an introductory essay to Higuchi Ichiyô's journal entries (pp. 127-135) and English translation of several journal entries by Higuchi Ichiyô (pp.136-150).

Doug McAdam, professor of sociology at Stanford University, will speak at Hamilton College on Thursday, Nov. 2, at 7:30 p.m. in the Fillius Events Barn on Hamilton’s campus. This event is part of the “Inequality and Equity” lecture series sponsored by the college’s Arthur Levitt Center. McAdam’s lecture is titled “The Civic Effects of Youth Service: The Surprising Case of Teach for America" and is based on his most recent writings on the subject.

Associate Professor of Africana Studies Tiffany Ruby Patterson presented a paper titled “Knowledge, Method, and Race: Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Takes on the Same Realities” at the Race and Pedagogy Conference at the University of Puget Sound in September. Research for the paper was funded by the Class of 1963 Faculty Fellowship, a grant that she has used to develop a course at Hamilton titled Knowledge and Method in Global African Studies which will be offered in the Africana Studies Program in the near future. Patterson’s paper was based on research for the course.

Assistant Professor of History Chad Williams presented a paper, "France, African American Military Service, and Diasporic Consciousness in the First World War," at an international conference titled "Spaces of War: France and the Francophone World," held at the University of Minnesota on Oct. 27. His paper examined how France during the war functioned as an ideological and geographic space where African Americans, and African American soldiers specifically, through the experience and symbolism of military service, developed a broadened international consciousness that was distinctly diasporic in scope. He gave particular attention to the nature of interactions between African American soldiers and African colonial soldiers in the French army. Williams is currently on leave as a fellow at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City.