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Speculating on America's obsession with movie box-office weekend returns, Hamilton anthropology professor Douglas Raybeck suggested that it is our means of diverting attention from threatening world events over which we have no control. In "Behind America's box-office obsession" in the Christian Science Monitor on Friday, June 1, Raybeck said "We display an increasing ability to take the trivial very seriously, in no small part because the trivial is understandable and non-threatening."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), breast cancer is one of the leading causes of death for women in the United States, and, as a result, the treatment of this terrible disease has become an area of intense research within the scientific and medical communities. To find one of the major fronts in the fight against breast cancer, one needs to look no further than Hamilton College. Amanda Salisburg ’08 (Duanesburg, N.Y.) and Katherine Alser ’09 (Newport Beach, Calif.), under the advisement of Winslow Professor of Chemistry George Shields and Co-Director of the Center for Molecular Design Karl Kirschner, are working on an ongoing project to design breast cancer drugs derived from alpha-fetoprotein (AFP).

Thanks to the generous support of young alumni, Hamilton College is pleased to name Mariam Ballout '10, of Clifton Park, N.Y., as its fourth GOLD Scholar.  Ballout chose Hamilton after two visits, citing both the friendliness of people on campus and students' intellectual engagement in the classroom.  Having completed her first year, she attributes the latter in part to the open curriculum, which allows students to explore subjects out of genuine interest rather than obligation. 

Associate Professor of English Naomi Guttman delivered a paper at the annual joint meeting of the Association for the Study of Food in Society and the Agriculture and Human Values Society at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, on May 31. The paper is titled "Slow Food, local farmers, and the creation of community in central New York." Slow Food is an international organization devoted to preserving and promoting local foods and the communities that depend on them.

A scholarship established to provide need-based support for students attending Hamilton, with preference given to students coming from Clinton or the Mohawk Valley, has been awarded for the first time. Clinton High School graduate Tom Williams is the inaugural recipient of the Frank and Mary Lou Owens Scholarship and will be a member of the class of 2011. The scholarship fund was created by Hamilton alumna, charter trustee and Clinton native Amy Owens Goodfriend ’82 and named in honor of her parents.

Hamilton College will welcome back more than 1,500 alumni and their guests when it hosts its annual Reunion Weekend, this year on Thursday-Sunday, May 31-June 3. An all-Kirkland Reunion will take place simultaneously, with 250 graduates of Kirkland College returning to campus. Reunion weekend will feature Alumni Colleges, building dedications, campus tours and traditional ceremonies.

Graduation has not stopped James McConnell ’07 (East Setauket, NY) from continuing his research in the lab of Winslow Professor of Chemistry George Shields and Co-Director of the Center for Molecular Design Karl Kirschner. McConnell, a chemistry and math double major, plans to spend part of this summer continuing to work on his thesis project, which he began last summer, until someone else is able to take over where he left off. In the meantime, he will be able to collect more data and work in a lab he describes as “very positive.”

Associate Professor of English Steven Yao delivered a lecture at Meiji University in Tokyo, Japan, on May 25. His lecture, titled "Recent Theoretical Issues in Ethnic American Literature in the U.S.," introduced Japanese scholars and students of ethnic American literature to current debates about the concept of "hybridity" in Asian American and Postcolonial literary theory. He was invited to speak at Meiji University by Professor Yoshiaki Koshikawa. Yao's talk stemmed from his current project, "Foreign Accents: Chinese American Verse and the Counter-Poetics of Difference in the U.S., 1910-Present."

Visiting Professor of Communication John Adams co-authored a chapter in a new book Rhetoric, Religion, and the Roots of Identity in British Colonial America: A Rhetorical History of the United States, Volume 1, by James R. Andrews (Michigan State University Press). According to the publisher "Volume 1 of the Rhetorical History of the United States series probes formal and ideational aspects of colonial rhetoric to illuminate textual/contextual interactions and their enduring implications for American rhetoric." Adams' chapter, co-authored with Stephen R. Yarbrough, is titled "Jonathan Edwards, the Great Awakening, and 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.'" 

Estelle Wilhelm, whose late husband Curtis "Curt" R. Wilhelm was a member of Hamilton’s class of 1940, has pledged $1 million toward the renovation of the Kirner-Johnson Building and has included the college in her estate plans. Hamilton President Joan Hinde Stewart observed, "Hamilton's ability to offer our students a superb liberal arts experience is strengthened by the generosity of people like Estelle Wilhelm."