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Almost a year ago, Joseph Jansen ’07 took a State and Local Politics class with Professor of Government Ted Eismeier. For the class, Jansen wrote a paper about the effect of the Supreme Court on Federalism as regards religion. “It interested me,” Jansen said, and as a result, he found himself applying for and receiving a Levitt Fellowship to research the progression of the understanding and interpretation of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses from the colonial period to the modern era. He is advised by Eismeier.

Victoria Jenkins ’09 (Yonkers, N.Y.) was on campus this summer to study reverse micellar solutions in the lab of Assistant Professor of Chemistry Camille Jones. Jenkins was also involved in a larger project which deals with clathrate, or gas, hydrates. The lab had as a final goal the synthesis of a hydrate from a reverse micellar solution although the project was then split up so the component parts could be studied. Jenkins was studying the basic reverse micellar solution of isooctane, sodium docusate salt, and water in order to understand the fundamentals of water behavior in the solution.

Rebecca “Ruth” Dibble ’07 (Raleigh, N.C.) spent her summer as an intern at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The rising senior art history major had a position as a volunteer intern in the department of European Decorative Arts assisting Jeff Munger, a curator of the collection.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Jenny Irons attended the American Sociological Association annual meeting in Montreal, Quebec. She served as one of three critics at an Author-Meets-Critics roundtable on David Cunningham's book, Something's Happening Here: The New Left, the Klan, and FBI Counterintelligence. She also presented a paper at a regular session called, "Constructing the Knowledge of Repression: An Empirical Analysis of Cultural Factors that Shape Covert State-level Repression."

A record number of 225 incoming first-year Hamilton students (about 45 percent of the incoming class) are participating this week in Adirondack Adventure, an outdoor orientation program for new students. The students arrived on August 15, a week before regular orientation, for eight days of games, hiking, canoeing and service projects.

Like many of his classmates, Luke Forster ’08 (Averill Park, N.Y.) opted to do research this summer. Forster, a world politics major and Chinese minor, spent his summer on the Hill, working with Assistant Professor of Government Sharon Rivera on a comparative study of democratization in Ukraine and Belarus.

For the 25th consecutive year, more than 50 percent of Hamilton alumni made contributions to the college. Of the 50.2 percent who made contributions, 55.5 percent increased the size of their gifts, a jump from 53 percent a year ago.

Maxwell Akuamoah-Boateng ’09 (Syracuse, N.Y.) is at Hamilton for his first summer of research, working in the lab of Professor of Chemistry Timothy Elgren. Akuamoah-Boateng is investigating a more efficient way of encapsulating an enzyme in silica sol gels. Sol gel is glass made from mixing a solution of silica (tetramethylorthosilicate) with water and acid. This solution mixture when allowed to dry forms the silica (glass) gels used in this experiment.

There are at least three Hamilton students in Japan for their summer research, but Lily Yu ’07 (Livingston, N.J.) wins for immersion: the comparative literature major spent her junior year abroad in the country and then stayed to do her research. Funded by an Emerson grant, Yu spent her summer investigating the formation of identity in burakumin literature.

Dave Smallen, vice president of information technology, commented on the 25th birthday of the personal computer in an article for <em>PC Magazine</em> authored by Natali Del Conte.  In the article, Smallen discussed the emergence of personal computers on college campuses and initial concerns about their use by students stating, "When the first personal computers came out and students started to bring them to campus, many people were concerned that students would spend so much time using their computers, isolated from each other, that the sense of community on campuses, and students' personal health would be compromised."