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The Nominations Committee of the Alumni Council invites recommendations for the 2008 Distinguished Service Award. Presented by the Council on behalf of the Alumni Association, the award recognizes an employee who has substantially contributed to Hamilton through distinguished job performance and through involvement in student, alumni, or other activities in the College community. At the time of selection, the recipient must be an active member of Hamilton's faculty, administration, staff, or maintenance and operations. 

The standard study abroad program usually means 10 weeks in Paris or Madrid and some fun pictures. But Anne Bowler, a rising senior from Dallas, Texas, had a very different experience: she spent part of her study abroad program living in a Zulu village. Before leaving, Bowler had received an Emerson grant to research the South African attitude toward a medical system which relies upon both traditional healing and Western medicine. She completed part of her fieldwork in Africa, but she will spend the summer conducting further research into what she calls a "universal desire for health."

Nine current and former Hamilton chemistry students published an article in the International Journal of Quantum Chemistry with former postdoctoral associate Steve Feldgus, co-director of the Center for Molecular Design Karl Kirschner, and Winslow Professor of Chemistry George Shields. The students involved were Katrina Lexa '05, Katherine Alser '09, Amanda Salisburg '08, Damien Ellens '03, Lorena Hernandez '03, Sam Bono '00, Heather Michael '07, Jennifer Derby '01, and Jaime Skiba '02. Their research article, "The Search for Low Energy Conformational Families of Small Peptides: Searching for Active Conformations of Small Peptides in the Absence of a Known Receptor," is the result of six years of research.

Eric Kuhn ’09 published an interview this month with White House Photographer and Special Assistant to the President Eric Draper in PBase Magazine. The Washington Examiner picked up on the Pbase article and reported on both Kuhn and this interview in its newspaper and on its Web site. He met Draper in the West Wing while participating in Hamilton’s Washington, D.C., program last semester. It took Kuhn two years to arrange for the interview, contacting Draper on a regular basis. Draper was able to schedule an interview on Kuhn’s last day in the D.C. program.

Only half an hour from the Hamilton College campus, near Fayetteville, N.Y., there is a rare biological spectacle lying hidden from casual eyes. Green Lake is one of the few meromitic lakes in the world. The term "meromitic" refers to that while most lakes have constant water cycling (water that was at the top of the lake one week could be at the bottom the next) Green Lake has virtually none, leading to portions of water that have been on the bottom of the lake for hundreds of years. For practical purposes, such as swimming or boating, the distinction makes little difference but Greg Ray '08 (Pittsburgh, Pa.) and Tara Apo '10 (Maui, HI) and their research advisors Professor of Biology Jinnie Garrett and Assistant Professor of Biology Michael McCormick aren't there to swim. Instead, the team is working to gain new insights into the levels, patterns, and characteristics of diversity in one of the world's most unique and understudied ecosystems.

Associate Professor of Dance Leslie Norton spoke at Jacob's Pillow, Mass., on July 14 about her new book, Frederic Franklin: A Biography of the Ballet Star, which has just been released by McFarland & Co., Inc.  Franklin, one of the greatest ballet dancers of the twentieth century, joined Norton for the talk, which is part of the festival's "Pillow Talk" series. Jacob's Pillow hosts an internationally renowned dance festival each summer, presenting the works of some of the world's finest dance companies, dancers and choreographers.

Cuttlefish, dogfish, and puffer-fish are not common household pets, but Genevieve Flanders '09 is getting up-close and personal with them this summer. She is spending the summer as an intern at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Massachusetts where she works with those as well as Hermissenda crassicornis sea slugs.

The self-help industry can solve your problems, but at what cost? Melissa Kong ’08 (Sunnyside, N.Y.), who has an Emerson grant to study the self-help revolution, is particularly interested in the gendered assumptions behind our lively self-help culture. Working with the Elihu Root Peace Fund Associate Professor of Women's Studies Vivyan Adair, Kong will research and report on the cultural phenomenon of self-help through the lens of feminist, racial, and cultural criticism.

Vivyan Adair, the Elihu Root Peace Fund Associate Professor of Women's Studies, published an article, a book review and a book chapter during the month of June. The book chapter, “Of Homemakers and Home-Breakers: The Deserving and the Undeserving Poor Mother in Depression Era Literature,” was published in The Literary Mother: Representations of Maternity and Child Care, edited by Susan Staub (McFarland Press, June 2007). Adair's book review, "Unsung heroines: Single Mothers and the American Dream, by Ruth Sidel," appeared in Gender and Society, June 2007, vol. 21, no. 3. The article, titled “Poverty and Story Telling in Higher Education," and written with ACCESS students Paulette Brown, Rose Perez, Nolita Clark and Shannon Stanfield, was published in Storytelling, Self, Society: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Storytelling Studies, volume 3, number 2, May-August 2007.

The New England-style village of Clinton, N.Y., has been transformed into an outdoor walking art gallery as part of a summertime promotion by the local Chamber of Commerce and the Kirkland Art Center.