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The Hamilton Environmental Action Group (HEAG), launched this semester's campaign to encourage sustainability and raise environmental awareness within the Hamilton community on September 21. The campaign, known as Green Week, was designed both to promote a sense of individual environmental responsibility and to educate students and faculty members to environmental problems on campus that have global implications.

The Ecology class made its annual trip up Whiteface Mountain on Sunday, Sept. 27. Despite low cloud cover, the group was able to study changes in forest composition and size at different elevations, the dwarfed trees (krummholtz) near the mountain top, and the vegetation of the alpine zone. The class is taught jointly by Associate Professor of Biology Bill Pfitsch and Ernest Williams, the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Biology.

Hamilton hosted a Gospel Music Celebration on Saturday, Sept. 26, in the Chapel as the culminating event of the 11th Annual Gospel Choir Workshop. Hamilton students and other college community members, as well as gospel choirs from other local colleges and churches, comprised the choir.

Arthur Levitt Jr., former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and proponent of tougher corporate accounting standards, will present a lecture titled “Regulation in the Financial Markets,” on Friday, Oct. 2, at 4:10 p.m. in the Kirner-Johnson Auditorium at Hamilton. It is free and open to the public.

Steve Culbertson '79, president and CEO of Youth Service America, will give a keynote address at the opening of Hamilton College’s new Community Outreach and Opportunity Project (COOP) on Thursday, Oct. 1, at 4 p.m. in the Chapel.

For the entirety of her senior year, Gail Corneau ’10 will be pursuing research that targets MRSA staph infections, an antibiotic-resistant staphylococcus infection that can be fatal if untreated. Hospitals researching Vancomycin, a last resort antibiotic used to treat MRSA infections, recently discovered that Vancomycin-resistant bacteria strains have emerged during testing.

The first presenter in this year's visiting artist series, Devorah Sperber, will speak on Wednesday, Sept. 30, at 4:15 p.m. in the college’s Kirner-Johnson auditorium. Sperber is an American installation artist known for creating works out of spools of thread, chenille pipe cleaners and map tacks that act as optical illusions.

The Chicago Tribune published a letter written by Daniel Chambliss, the Eugene M. Tobin Distinguished Professor of Sociology, in response to a front-page article titled “These dorms major in luxury; Maids, flat-screen TVs -- 'Boomers really want it better for their kids’.” Chambliss’ letter focused on his findings that “When college students opt for ‘luxury’ residence halls, they pay much more but actually get far less.”

Twelve Hamilton students competed in the AWA Long Lake Long Boat Regatta on Saturday, Sept. 26. The students raced four-person canoes 10 miles, against Paul Smith College and Colgate University, in the first New York State College Canoe Championship. Andrew Jillings, Hamilton director of outdoor leadership, and Brian McDonnell, regatta organizer, added the college division of the race this year.

The Chapel was filled to capacity on Monday night to hear Steven Pinker’s lecture “The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature.” Pinker was invited to give the annual Plant Lecture, which recognizes outstanding scientists as guest lecturers on campus.