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William Hoffman ’07 of Baltimore, Md., is working on a summer research project with Associate Professor of Geosciences David Bailey titled “Chemical characterization of chert  source material in the Great Basin of Central Nevada.”  (Chert is a very hard sedimentary rock). Hoffman spent two weeks in the Great Basin collecting samples and is now on campus preparing the samples for geochemical analysis. 

Professor of Religious Studies Heidi Ravven delivered two keynote addresses at conferences during August. At the Institute on Gendered Intersections: Feminist Scholarship in Islamic and Judaic Studies at Dartmouth College in August she gave an address at the introductory plenary session. Ravven also delivered a keynote address at the International Institute of Advanced Systems Research annual meeting in Baden-Baden, Germany, in August.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Women's Studies Danielle DeMuth joined faculty from nine liberal arts colleges for a weeklong seminar at Middlebury College to develop collaborative projects and teaching resources for courses covering Islam, the Arab World and the Middle East. Organizers contacted DeMuth after reading about her course on Arab and Arab-American feminisms. DeMuth is continuing to work with colleagues from Williams, Middlebury, Hobart and William Smith, and Muhlenberg colleges to develop a teaching resource on framing Iraq war news, including a wiki and a GIS map of war developments. DeMuth's contributions focus on Iraq war bloggers and on the impact of the Iraq war on women.

Sara Bert ’06 (Liberal, Kan.) returned home this summer for a reason other than to relax and enjoy the nice weather. Bert, who was awarded an Emerson Grant this year, is studying the ways in which the different ethnic groups present in Liberal are interacting or not interacting.

The Antarctic Peninsula is undergoing greater warming than almost anywhere on Earth, a condition perhaps associated with human-induced greenhouse effects. According to the cover article published in the August 4 issue of the journal Nature, the spectacular collapse of Antarctica's Larsen B Ice Shelf, an area roughly the size of Rhode Island, is unprecedented during the past 10,000 years. Eugene Domack, professor of geosciences at Hamilton College and the author of the paper, has been the lead scientist of a multi-institutional, international effort that combines a variety of disciplines in examining the response of the Antarctic Peninsula to modern warming. Domack says, "Our work contributes to the understanding of these changes -- where they are occurring first and with greatest magnitude and impact upon the environment."

Dong Zhang ’07 (Shanghai, China) channeled his interests in psychology, research on Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and his knowledge of China into an Emerson project he has spent the summer compiling in China.

Many people will remember the November 2004 Ukrainian presidential election by images of the face of poisoned candidate Victor Yushcenko, which were flashed all over the news. Brendan O’Brien ’07 (Stoneham, Mass.) will remember this election for a different reason. As a Levitt Fellow, the election is the focus of his summer. O’Brien is spending 10 weeks surrounded by academic journals and articles about the ethnic Ukraine, and how this has related to government and democracy in the past 15 years, and he is compiling his research into a report titled “Ethnicity and Democracy in the Ukraine.”

Speaking with this year's participants in the STEP/Dreyfus program about their work, one would never guess that only five weeks ago none of them had had any college-level research experience. In fact, they had no experience with college life at all—these 10 students are members of the Hamilton class of 2009 and will matriculate as Hamilton students in the fall. The STEP/Dreyfus program provides funding for about 10 first-year students to spend five weeks in their pre-freshman summer working directly with Hamilton faculty doing summer research in biochemistry, chemistry, chemical physics, neuroscience and physics. The Hamilton program is one of only a handful of programs across the nation that allow pre-freshmen to engage in science research before formally matriculating in the institution.

The Nominations Committee of the Alumni Council invites nominations for the 2006 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.

Hamilton College has been selected for Campus Technology's 2005 Innovators, and is featured in the August issue of Campus Technology magazine. The award recognizes the support of faculty/student use of multimedia in support of Hamilton's strategic goals and in particular the support services provided by the Multimedia Presentation Center and the HILLgroup. Hamilton was one of only 13 schools recognized and the only liberal arts college.