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The Diversity and Social Justice Project student conference will take place at Hamilton on Saturday, Sept. 8, in the Science Center. Students from Hamilton, Colgate University and Union College will be presenting their work on a variety of relevant topics. The conference will begin with a lecture by Dr. Leslie Thiele of the University of Florida titled, “You Can Never do Just One Thing; What Ecology Teaches us About Social Justice.” Both the lecture and the rest of the conference are free and open to everyone; no registration is required to attend.

Other people went tanning this summer, but for Kim Roe '08, half-way around the world, it was winter again. "I had to put a hot water bottle in my sleeping bag," joked Roe, a native of Maryville, Tenn., who spent the month of June doing geology field work in Tasmania. Roe spent a total of three weeks on the Tasman peninsula, the first two with Hamilton's geology field study program and one doing field work on her own.

Mariam Ballout '10 knows she wants to go into TV journalism. With this goal in mind, she found and applied for an internship in the newsroom of WTEN-TV, an Albany TV station. During her summer in the newsroom, Ballout learned first-hand a whole collection of new skills, from eliciting information from the grieving, to dealing with bizarre phone calls, to cutting and editing a story for release.

William Cowles ’09 took his history major into new territory this summer when he turned to the little-studied Robben Island hunger strikes. Cowles was interested in researching South Africa and subsequently applied for and was awarded an Emerson grant to investigate and build a timeline for the evolution of the Robben Island hunger strikes as a method of political resistance.

Dan Nye '88, CEO of networking site LinkedIn, is featured in a USA Today (9/5/07) article about his company. LinkedIn is described as "a fast-growing start-up that runs the popular professional-networking Web site of the same name." Nye, who is new to the company, is quoted in the article: "So many dot-com start-ups are flash-in-the-pan companies that weren't built on core values for the long term," he says. "If you want to build a great company, you need high-quality people and high-quality products that matter to the world." Unlike Facebook, which is a social networking site, LinkedIn is strictly for making professional connections.

The Hamilton College Performing Arts partners with Hamilton’s Diversity and Social Justice Project and the Department of Theater to open the Contemporary Voices and Visions Series with selections from Anna Deavere Smith’s play Let Me Down Easy on Friday, Sept. 7, at 7:30 p.m. at Wellin Hall in the Schambach Center for Music and the Performing Arts. Let Me Down Easy — a play about the resilience and fragility of the human body — is the latest installment in Smith's ongoing series of one woman shows, On The Road: A Search For American Character.

Hamilton is presenting a conversation about the 2006 and 2008 elections with Hamilton alumni Alicia Davis '97, and Marc Elias '90. Davis was regional political director at the Republican National Committee before joining Targetpoint Consulting, and Elias is a partner in the Perkins Coie law firm who served as general counsel for the Kerry-Edwards campaign and counsel for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Chapel on Sunday, Sept. 9, at 7:30 p.m.

Visiting Professor of Art History Scott MacDonald's "Testing Your Patience: An Interview with James Benning" has been published in the September issue of Artforum. MacDonald briefly reviews Benning's long career, then talks with Benning about several recent films including 13 Lakes (2004), which Benning presented during last spring’s F.I.L.M. Series at Hamilton; Ten Skies (2004), RR (as in "railroad," 2007) and casting a glance (2007), Benning's newest film, about Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty.

Hamilton staff and faculty from a number of offices met with Adeleri Onisegun, director of the psychology program at Paine College, for a workshop titled "Overcoming Barriers to Inclusiveness: From Theory to Practice" on June 20. Onisegun led 20 participants from the dean's office, the admission office, several additional administrative offices and a dozen academic departments in a discussion of ways in which Hamilton can most effectively attract and retain faculty and students from underrepresented groups.

Associate Professors of Economics Ann Owen and Steve Wu published "Is trade good for your health?" in the Review of International Economics. The article investigates the link between increased openness to international trade and health outcomes such as life expectancy and infant mortality.