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Lizzy Finan '08 and Will Caffry '09 are conducting field work on lizards in Oregon with Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Pete Zani. The three are working at a research site along Wright's Point in Burns, Ore. Will has been helping Prof. Zani with his research on the side-blotched lizard, Uta stansburiana, while Lizzy studies the social behavior among the lizards and their home-ranges. Lizzy reports "In the colder morning hours we catch as many lizards as possible to bring back to the lab and collect morphology data. The second (warmer) part of the day we spend mapping the topography of Lizzy's research area and conducting focal observations of the territorial lizard within their individual home-ranges." Read more about Lizzy's experience View photos

The Hamilton campus came to life for Reunions on May 31-June 3 as hundreds of Hamilton men and women and Kirkland women connected with old friends, visited those places that hold fond memories, and rediscovered the magic of the Hamilton and Kirkland experience. The 2007 event was the largest reunion in Hamilton's history, with 1,617 alumni and guests attending. Highlights included presentation of the Bell Ringer Award to Patsy Pogue Couper, wife of the late Hamilton trustee Dick Couper '44, at the annual meeting of the Alumni Association on June 2 in the Chapel. The Bell Ringer is presented each year in recognition of contributions made to the College, its alumni and the community. The Reunion keynote lecture featured Christie K '72 and Tom Vilsack '72, former first lady and two-term governor of Iowa.

Former presidential candidate Tom Vilsack '72 and his wife Christie Vilsack K'72, the 2007 reunion keynote speakers, addressed a large and receptive audience in the college's Chapel on Friday, June 1. The couple described their journey in politics as a family and the processes and decisions involved in being considered for a spot as a vice presidential candidate and then in running as a presidential candidate. They are also the parents of two sons, Jess, a 2000 Hamilton graduate, and Douglas.

Associate Professor of Theatre Craig Latrell and Michael Singer, '09 are visiting East Malaysia on an Emerson Student-Faculty grant concerning the effects of globalization on local cultures. Singer is interested in studying how industrialization is affecting the island of Borneo, whose rainforests are among the oldest in the world and whose shoreline serves as an incubator for the eggs of sea turtles. Village cultures represent primarily agrarian and traditional ways of life that are rapidly being eroded by various global forces such as multinational corporations. Singer wants to study how these residents regard, contribute to and resist the forces of globalization.

Associate Professor of History Shoshana Keller has published an article titled "Story, Time and Dependent Nationhood in the Uzbek History Curriculum," in _Slavic Review_ Vol. 66, No. 2 (Summer 2007. Slavic Review is a leading interdisciplinary quarterly of Russian, Eurasian and East European studies.

Professor of Chinese De Bao Xu published a second edition of his book, Generative Phonology-Theory and Usage, (China Social Sciences Publishing House, Beijing, 2007). The book covers the up-to-date theories and researches in generative phonology with the illustration of the data across Chinese dialects.

Professor of Classics Shelley Haley has been selected to receive the American Classical League’s Merita Award. The award is presented annually to classicists in recognition of their sustained and distinguished service to ACL and the profession at large. Haley will be presented with the award at the League's annual meeting in June in Nashville. The American Classical League was founded in 1919 for the purpose of fostering the study of classical languages in the United States and Canada.

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.