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Students in the Semester in Washington Program visited the World Bank on December 11. The visit began with a luncheon and an overview of the mission and operation of the Bank by Hasan Tuluy P’08, director, Operations and Country Services Department Middle East and North Africa Region. Students then participated in two sessions led by World Bank staff, one on the role of information technology in economic development and one on issues of governance.

Richard Seager, professor of religion, was interviewed by the Newhouse News Service for an article about the religions of new members of Congress. The new Congress will include two Buddhist members for the first time. Seager is the author of "Buddhism in America."

Derek Jones, the Irma M. and Robert D. Morris Professor of Economics, recently published “Human Resource Management Policies and Productivity: New Evidence from An Econometric Case Study” in the Oxford Review of Economic Policy. The study, co-authored by Panu Kalmi and Antti Kauhanen, both members of the Helsinki School of Economics faculty, identified various approaches used by economists to assess the impact of human resource management practices on productivity and reviewed and illustrated studies that represent different approaches. 

The Hamilton College Brass Ensemble performed on Sunday, Dec. 10 with the Catskill Brass Quintet on an annual holiday concert at the Community Center in Van Hornesville, N.Y. Directed by Assistant Professor of Music Heather Buchman, they performed two pieces alone, and joined forces with the Catskill Brass and students at SUNY Oneonta on two pieces for antiphonal brass and on several Christmas carols. The Brass Ensemble also continued its tradition, started last year, of "guerilla caroling" at McEwen, Beinecke, Commons and the Science Atrium during lunchtime on the last day of classes.

The Alumni Council has nominated three candidates to serve as members of Hamilton's board of trustees. They are George D. Baker, Jr. '74, Torrence D. Moore '92 and Nancy Roob '87. In addition, two petition candidates have been accepted to the ballot -- Peter D. Brown '73 and Ben S. Wu '73. Each alumni trustee to be elected will serve a four-year term beginning on July 1, 2007.

De Bao Xu, professor of Chinese, published China Scene, a cross-platform, interactive software equipped for a 16 lesson-textbook China Scene-the Advanced Chinese Multimedia Course written by Hong Gang Jin, De Bao Xu and James Hargett, (Cheng & Tsui Company, 2000). A test-use version of the software is available at http://academics.hamilton.edu/eal/home//Software.html.

Actress and choreographer Rosie Perez gave the annual Voices of Color Lecture at Hamilton on December 7. Perez is an Academy Award-nominated actress and Emmy-nominated choreographer. She began her career as a choreographer for such artists as Bobby Brown, LL Cool J and Diana Ross. She also choreographed and directed the "Fly Girls" on Fox Television's In Living Color, for which she received an Emmy nomination.

Adam Polonski '08 participated in the Undergraduate Conference in Medieval and Early Modern Studies at Moravian College at Bethlehem, Pa., on Dec. 1-3. He presented a well-received paper titled "Malory the Idealist." Brittany Gross '10 also attended the conference.

Debra Boutin, associate professor of mathematics, has published a research article in the Journal of Graph Theory. This paper presents Boutin's continuing work in the area of geometric graph theory, a subfield of discrete geometry. The article "Distinguishing Geometric Graphs," co-authored with Michael Albertson, proves that (with one exception) every complete straight line network has the property that we can color each node with one of three colors in such a way that the resulting colored network has no symmetry.

The Hamilton College Orchestra will give a free performance on Thursday, Dec. 7, at 8 p.m. in Wellin Hall. The orchestra, directed by Heather Buchman, will perform Bartok Transylvanian Dances, Falla El sombrero de tre picos (Three Cornered Hat) and Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C minor. Admission is free and no tickets are required.