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Associate Professor of French, Joseph E. Mwantuali gave an invited lecture at the University of Douala, Cameroon, on May 3, in a colloquium honoring the artist, actress and writer Werewere Liking of the Ivory Coast/Cameroon. This colloquium was part of an international festival celebrating women, organized by the Cameroonian-based organization called Massao (“bravo” in Douala). Mwantuali’s lecture concentrated on Werewere’s poetry and was titled: “Werewere Liking: l’exorciste et les mots de pouvoirs” (“Werewere Liking: the exorcist and the power of words”).

Hamilton College's Emerson Gallery exhibition, "Nature as Refuge: From Rousseau's Cascade to Central New York's Trenton Falls," is open through Sunday, Aug. 28. The show of paintings, prints and drawings of Upstate New York, including Trenton Falls and the Hudson Valley, seeks to illustrate the lasting influence of Swiss philosopher and writer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) on the way people regard nature. Rousseau's ideas, especially those found in his final book, The Reveries of the Solitary Walker, will be shown as a significant influence on the "back-to-nature" movement so popular in the nineteenth century. While visiting this exhibition, visitors are also encouraged to take their own walk into nature along the paths of the Root and Kirkland Glens on the opposite side of College Hill Road on the college's campus.

Cheng Li, the William R. Kenan Professor of Government, was quoted in the Agence France Presse article "Anti-corruption bloodbath in China shows signs of retreating." Li said, "The scale of corruption grows as fast as the Chinese economy does. If one does not deal with prevalent corruption in China, the Chinese state will not survive for long."

Winslow Professor of Chemistry George Shields published an article in the Journal of Computational Chemistry. The article, "First-principle studies of intermolecular and intramolecular catalysis of protonated cocaine," was co-authored with Jaime Skiba '02, Beth Hayes '02, Sarah Tschampel '00, and colleagues at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and the University of Kentucky. The work, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health, was carried out by Skiba and Hayes during summer research and as part of Tschampel's senior thesis project. The research was completed at the University of Kentucky, and outlines two different pathways for the hydrolysis of cocaine by catalytic antibodies.

While many of their classmates begin vacations or summer jobs, eight Hamilton College students will embark on a month-long service trip to Jinja, Uganda, on May 21. The group, known as Athari, the Swahili word for "impact," will travel to Uganda to collaborate with the non-profit group Soft Power Education.

The town hall-style meeting featuring Hamilton College President Joan Hinde Stewart, originally planned for April 25, has been rescheduled for Monday, May 23, at 7 p.m. in the Kirkland Town Library.

Hamilton College will host the 14th biennial colloquium of the Rousseau Association on June 9-12, focusing on Swiss philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and his last work, The Reveries of the Solitary Walker.

The Clinton Fire Department awarded the inaugural Martin Crouch Award to Michael Stahl '06 (Hillsborough, Calif.) at the annual Installation Banquet held on Saturday, April 30, at the Skenandoa Club. The award is given to a volunteer firefighter who exemplifies the following attributes: positive attitude toward peers, department, officers and community, participation in on-going training and firefighting practices and utmost respect for others. Stahl went on 224 calls with the Clinton Fire Department since April, 2004.  The award, which will be given annually, is named in honor of Marty Crouch, a 26-year member of the department who died in October.  

Professor of Classics Barbara Gold gave lectures in April at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill and Duke University on teaching interdisciplinary courses. She also gave a graduate seminar at UNC-CH and ran a workshop for graduate students at both universities on publishing in scholarly journals. Gold lectured to a graduate class in feminist theory, psychoanalytic theory and Roman poetry. She is the editor of The American Journal of Philology, the oldest classics journal in the U.S.

Assistant Professor of Biology Steve Festin and Hamilton student Ernest DiGiovanni '05 participated in the 96th annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Anaheim, Calif., in April. DiGiovanni and Festin presented their paper, "Effects of AFP peptide on cAMP levels and signaling pathways in MCF-7 and T47D cells." The work presented was suported by an NIH grant to Festin to study molecular pathways of breast cancer. Festin is a member the AACR Science Education Committee since 2002, and is responsible for both the high school program and Thomas Bardos award for undergraduates. Festin was on the Bardos award selection committee and gave a talk at the High School Program with Donald Coffey, former president of the AACR, Thomas Mack and a young cancer survivor. Festin's talk was titled "Why Cancer Research Needs You."  He was also a mentor for student poster and exhibit tours.