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Rising senior Mikhail Bell ’08 (New York, N.Y.) knew that he didn’t want to spend another summer working in an insurance agency. Bell, a major in world politics with a concentration on gender studies and development, wanted experience in a profession related to his academic interests. After some research, Bell applied for and received a position as a volunteer at the Carter Center.

Since declaring its independence from the USSR in 1991, the Republic of Georgia has been working to establish a fully democratic government and educational system. Giorgi Chavleishvili ’08, a native of the Republic of Georgia, had a Levitt Fellowship this summer to investigate the changes in the Georgian education system and how it has been adapted to democracy.

Make a Difference Day, Hamilton’s annual community service day, will take place on Saturday, Sept. 1, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Campus service organization HAVOC, the sponsor of the event, hopes to have about 200 students and staff members volunteer at about a dozen community organizations in Utica. This annual event is aimed at getting students off campus and into the nearby neighborhoods with need.

Daniel José Custódio '00 is team captain of SlamRichmond, Virginia's first team to compete in the PSI National Poetry competition. He led a five-member team to Austin, Texas to compete in the competition, which consists of 75 teams and 300 poets, for the second year in a row.  "Modern-Day Gladiator," a group piece written by Daniel, was featured during the semi-finals. SlamRichmond plans to send a team to the competition next year and hopes that the experience they have gained in the last two will serve them well.  According to Daniel, "We have all the ingredients to win the championship next year."  For more information on SlamRichmond or on Daniel's poetry, please visit www.myspace.com/slamrichmond or www.thepoetdaniel.com. 

Rebecca Murtaugh, assistant professor of art, has photographs of three installations published in the September 2007 issue of Shamenet Magazine in a piece authored by writer and designer Yuval Saar. Shamenet is a Tel Aviv, Israel-based publication of contemporary culture. Works include "To Mark A Significant Space in the Living Room #1" (2007), and "To Mark A Significant Space in the Bedroom, #1" (2003) comprised of rooms covered in Post-it Notes.

Earlier this summer we spoke to Stephen Okin, who has an Emerson grant to research the increasingly shaky relationship between Venezuela and the U.S. With the recent media coverage of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, it seemed timely to catch up with Okin and get an update on his research.

University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School of Communication professor Barbie Zelizer will present "When Reporting War Is More Imagined Than Real," on Thursday, Aug. 30, at 7 p.m. in the Kennedy Auditorium in the Science Center. She is the first presenter in the 2007-08 Levitt Center series, The Age of Information. The lecture is free and open to the public.

While most Hamilton researchers spent their summer in the Science Center, Lisa Fontes '09 (West Danville, Vt.) traveled to the Nevada desert to work on her research project. Fontes and 12 other Hamilton students participated in the College's 2007 Archaeological Field School, which was located about 35 miles from Ely, Nevada. For six weeks, the group studied sites in the central Great Basin, focusing on areas inhabited by Paleoindians 8,000 to 11,000 years ago. They investigated land use, mobility patterns, subsistence strategies, and other aspects of the lifestyle and cultural ecology of early Great Basin people.

Work created by Associate Professor of Art Ella Gant is on exhibit now through October 23 at Light Work, an arts center focused on the mediums of photography and digital imaging. As a recipient of one of the 33rd Annual Light Work Grants in Photography, Gant is exhibiting her work with two other recipients, Brantley Carroll and David Moore. A gallery reception will be held on Thursday, Sept. 6, from 5 – 8 p.m. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

Hamilton students migrate south for the summer, leaving one Hill for another, and Maura Kernan ’08 was one of several Hamiltonians interning in Washington, D.C. this summer. While some of her classmates worked in senatorial offices, Kernan had a position with the Department of Labor in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, where she worked as a research assistant under the directorate of science, technology and medicine.