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Fire on the Mountain, a documentary film about the U.S. Army’s Tenth Mountain Division in World War II, will be shown on Thursday, March 30, at 8 p.m. in Hamilton College’s Kirner-Johnson Auditorium in the Kirner-Johnson Building. The film will be followed by a discussion with Hamilton history professor Maurice Isserman, Hamilton geosciences professor Todd Rayne, Director of Adventure Programs Andrew Jillings and Donald B. Potter, Hamilton emeritus geology professor and World War II veteran and member of the 10th Mountain Division. The program is free and open to the public.

A new piano concerto composed by alumna Melinda Wagner '79, "Extremity of Sky," will be performed by Emanuel Ax and the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. on Thursday and Saturday, March 23 and 25, and at Carnegie Hall in New York City on Thursday, April 6. Wagner, a Hamilton trustee, won a Pulitzer Prize for composition in 1999.

Professor of History Maurice Isserman published a book review in The Chicago Tribune (March 19, 2006). Isserman reviewed The Explorer King: Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax--Clarence King in the Old West by Robert Wilson. The book recounts the life of geologist Clarence King, who explored the Yosemite Valley, King's Canyon and the eastern Sierras in the 1860s through late 1870s. Isserman wrote: "The Old West in popular imagination--certainly in my imagination as a boy growing up far away in the East--was a place for cowboys and Indians, cavalrymen, sheriffs and maybe the occasional sourdough miner. Scientists didn't make the list. Only many years later did I come to realize that some of the best stories about the Old West were theirs."

Vivyan Adair, the Elihu Root Peace Studies Associate Professor of Women's Studies, published an article, "Class Absences: Cutting Class in Feminist Studies,"  in Feminist Studies Volume 31, number 3. According to the journal's preface, "Adair critiques the inattention to social class in women's studies scholarship and teaching and moreover, that the very poor (women in particular) are erased when they are subsumed under the framework of 'working-class studies.'" Adair also gave three lectures at Meredith College during March: to the to the CORE Diversity students and the School of Social Work and Social Welfare; to the College in conjunction with the "Missing Story of Ourselves: Women, Poverty and the Politics of Representation" photo exhibit that is there for the month, and to the School of Education, in conjunction with her article in Harvard Educational Review.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Government Brian J. Glenn recently hosted a conference with Steve Teles at the Center for the Study of American Politics at Yale University. Glenn is co-editing a forthcoming book with Teles, who, coincidentally, was also once a visiting faculty member in the Hamilton government department.  The conference was focused on their book, Conservatives and American Political Development, which follows the role of conservatives in the development of environmental, education and Social Security policy.

On Thursday, the Bucs announced the hiring of seven new assistant coaches, including two who have left the USC staff to jump to the NFL. Ten years after hiring Rod Marinelli to coach their D-Line and shortly after Marinelli left to become the Detroit Lions new head coach, the Buccaneers have filled that position with the Trojans’ Franklin. The team’s new defensive backs coach, Greg Burns, is also fresh off that USC staff; he replaces Mike Tomlin, who is now the defensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings. After seeing their coaching staff raided by four other organizations, the Bucs also filled six additional openings, including one from within. Jimmy Lake is the new assistant defensive backs coach, replacing Raheem Morris, who took the defensive coordinator position at Kansas State. Tim Berbenich and Nathaniel Hackett are the new offensive quality control coaches, replacing Kyle Shanahan, who joined Gary Kubiak’s new staff in Houston, and Chris Wiesehan. And Casey Bradley is the new defensive quality control coach, filling the vacancy left when Joe Woods followed Tomlin to Minnesota. Berbenich comes to the Buccaneers from the New York Jets, where he was a quality control coach last season and an offensive assistant in 2003-04. Shultz spent the last two seasons as the strength and conditioning coach for the Minnesota Vikings. Lake, Hackett and Bradley, though, are three more NFL first-timers making the jump from the NCAA. Lake has coached at Eastern Washington, Washington and, most recently, Montana State. Hackett, the son of Buccaneers Quarterbacks Coach Paul Hackett, was on Stanford’s staff the last three years, serving as a specialists coach and recruiting coordinator in 2005. Bradley spent the last decade at North Dakota State, holding the defensive coordinator position for seven of those 10 years. Berbenich spent three seasons (2003-05) as a member of the Jets coaching staff, including one season as a quality control coach in 2005. He served as an offensive assistant coach during his first two seasons (2003-04). Berbenich originally joined the Jets as an operations assistant for the 2002 season after interning in the operations department during training camps from 2000-01. From 1998-01, he played wide receiver for Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. 2006 Tampa Bay Buccaneers Coaching Staff• Jon Gruden, Head Coach• Monte Kiffin, Defensive Coordinator• Bill Muir, Offensive Coordinator/Offensive Line • Richard Bisaccia, Special Teams Coordinator• Art Valero, Assistant Head Coach/Running Backs• Joe Barry, Linebackers• Tim Berbenich, Offensive Quality Control• Casey Bradley, Defensive Quality Control • Greg Burns, Defensive Backs• Jethro Franklin, Defensive Line• Jay Gruden, Offensive Assistant• Paul Hackett, Quarterbacks• Nathaniel Hackett, Offensive Quality Control • Paul Kelly, Assistant to the Head Coach/Football Operations• Aaron Kromer, Senior Assistant/Offensive Line• Jimmy Lake, Assistant Defensive Backs• Richard Mann, Wide Receivers• Rod Middleton, Tight Ends/Assistant Special Teams• Mike Morris, Head Strength and Conditioning • Kurt Shultz, Assistant Strength and Conditioning  

The Kirkland Art Center (KAC) will be sponsoring a showing of Roger Donaldson's THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN Thursday night, March 16, at 7:00, at the Marquee Cinemas in New Hartford. Alumnus Joe Howardd '70 has a role in the film. The KAC describes the film as follows: "Anthony Hopkins gives perhaps his most endearing, least showy performance in this film about a kind of heroism that has gone out of style. THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN, directed by Roger Donaldson, is based on the true story of New Zealander Burt Munro. Burt is a man in his 60s who has spent years tinkering with a 1920 Indian motorcycle. In 1967, Burt thinks the Indian may be ready to travel to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and take part in the annual Speed Week. The officials lack the heart to turn him away. Underfunded, without the support of a team and against all odds, he not only makes it to Bonneville, he sets a national land speed record, not once, but repeatedly." The showing is the eighth in the KAC's "Bleak Winter Film Series." The series receives funding from the New York State Council on the Arts and is co-sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature.

Four Hamilton College faculty members were approved for tenure by the college’s board of trustees during their recent meeting. Faculty receiving tenure are Seth A. Major, physics; Lisa Trivedi, history; Stephen Wu, economics; and Steven G. Yao, English. The granting of tenure is based on recommendations of the vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty, and the committee on appointments, with the president of the college presenting final recommendations to the board of trustees. All will receive the title of associate professor on July 1.

Six winners of the Hamilton College 2006 public speaking contest were announced after the final round of the contest on March 4. Preliminaries were held on Feb. 11 as students competed for three separate prizes: The McKinney Prize, The Clark Prize and The Warren Wright Prize. Between the preliminary and final rounds, speakers had the option of working with “speech coach” Jim Helmer, co-director of the Oral Communication Center, who was also a judge in the preliminary round. Seventeen students competed in the final round.

When the call came for volunteers to help out at an alternative community school in Cofradia, Cortes, Honduras, four Hamilton students stepped up and organized an international service trip that will take place during Hamilton's spring break, March 19-26. Sarah Griffith '06, Emily Gunther '06, Julia Daly '08 and Johanna Sanchez '08 will work at the San Jeromino School, at the suggestion of alumna Lauren Fisher '05, who teaches second grade there. In particular the presence of women is a powerful and largely absent influence on children at San Jeronimo.