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Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs and Steel, The Fates of Human Societies, will give the James S. Plant Lecture at Hamilton College on Thursday, Sept. 29, at 8 p.m., in Wellin Hall as part of the College’s science center dedication weekend “Celebrating Science at Hamilton College.” The lecture will be followed by a book signing and reception and is free and open to the public. The new $56 million science center is the largest construction project in the College’s history.

Meghan Moulton '07 sent the following e-mail to friends at Hamilton. She is one of eight Hamilton students who are in Jinja, Uganda, volunteering with the non-profit group Soft Power Education. The group is working at Lukolo Primary School and will remain in Uganda until June 22. Moulton reports that the students met a Hamilton alumnus, Herbert Wamboko '95 and tells how the young Ugandan students present their American friends with fresh fruit every day.

He spent much of his life with a vision, saw the world with an unparalleled sense of courage and an undying spirit of curiosity. A lens, some film and an artist’s touch were the tools he used to capture the essence of reality and transform it into something magical. Nothing could stop the late LIFE Magazine photographer George Silk from getting the picture he most desired, whether it be the threat of being killed in a war, climbing the masts of 12-meter sailboats or waiting patiently for three-and-a-half weeks to shoot the perfect nature picture. An array of the photographs he took throughout his life is currently on view at the Emerson Gallery in an exhibit also featuring the photographic work of his daughter, Georgiana Silk K’72, in the first retrospective of the father and daughter together in this country.

Among the many guests to accompany alumni to Reunion Weekend was Wes Cowan, an antiques dealer and auctioneer for the past 10 years, star of the PBS television series History Detectives, and featured appraiser on Antiques Roadshow, whose wife, Shelley (Gertzog) graduated from Kirkland College in 1975. On Friday, in the Fillius Events Barn, Cowan gave a talk titled “Collecting for Fun and Profit,” on treasuring the old in the form of antique collecting and dealing, and provided advice to his audience on how to get started with this pastime.

Associate Professor of Chinese De Bao Xu was mentioned in a <i>Taiwan News Online</i> article (6/6/05) about the fourth international conference on Internet Chinese education. The conference, being held in Taiwan, is addressing how the most important technological development in the last 10 years - the Internet - may best be used to teach Chinese as a second language. The article said Xu "gave an overview of how computer technologies have been used to teach Chinese as a second language in the past 35 years, offering conference participants the opportunity to know the who's who of the field and gain an understanding as to what needs to be done next to make improvements."

Assistant Professor of History Chad Williams gave a lecture on June 3 to an audience of Hamilton and Kirkland alumni titled “African-American Soldiers and the Meaning of the First World War.” The talk stemmed from his dissertation and research in black studies and was offered as an Alumni College as part of Reunions 2005 activities.

On a warm, sunny day made to order for a nature walk, more than 40 alumni and guests enjoyed a tour of Root Glen led by Ernest Williams, the Leonard C. Ferguson Professor of Biology, during Reunion Weekend.

A paper written by Derek Jones, the Irma M. and Robert D. Morris Professor of Economics, with Kosali Ilayperuma Simon '94, an assistant professor at Cornell University and Watson fellowship recipient while at Hamilton, has been published in the June 2005 issue of the Journal of Comparative Economics. The paper is titled "Wage Determination under Plan and Early Transition: Bulgarian Evidence using Matched  Employer-Employee Data."

Economics Professor Elizabeth Jensen participated in a Teaching Innovations Program Workshop (TIP), June 3-5, in Washington, D.C. TIP is a program run by the American Economic Committee on Economic Education and funded by the National Science Foundation; this is the first year of a five-year program. Participants spent three days learning about and discussing interactive learning techniques such as classroom experiments and cooperative learning, which will be introduced into next year's classes.

Professor of Geosciences Eugene Domack was featured in a Syracuse Post-Standard article (6/2/2005) about climate research. Domack, a marine geologist, led the last scientific expedition to the Larsen Ice Shelf in Antarctica before it disintegrated over a mere 35 days. Using core samples, he studies the history of the ocean floor; he helped determine the age of the 700-foot-thick ice shelf.