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Professor of Religious Studies Heidi Ravven was an invited participant at the Feminist Ethics Project Colloquium, Oct. 10 and 11 at Brandeis University. At the meeting, Ravven was appointed to full membership in the project.

Young Han '06 appeared in a NBC Nightly News segment (10/10/04) about the fight to permit college students to vote in the community where they attend college. "I drive on the roads, I pay sales, income taxes, I breathe the air, drink the water. All the laws that they implement here will affect me just as much as it will affect anyone in the community," said Han. After being told by Oneida County officials thet he must vote by absenteee ballot in his home state of Washington, Han has become a leader in the movement to let students vote in their college communities.

Frank Deford, renowned sports commentator and writer, presented the keynote speech for Hamilton College’s Fallcoming Alumni Weekend on October 10 in the Chapel.  Introduced by Professor Bob Simon as one of the world’s greatest sports writers, Deford presented his lectured titled “Sports: The Hype and the Hoopla,” a humorous account of some of the most serious issues plaguing sports in America today and the wonderful “soul” of sporting competition.

Alice Rivlin, Brookings Institute's senior fellow and director of its Greater Washington Research Program in Economic Studies will open this year's Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center speaker series. Rivlin will speak on Monday, Oct. 11, at 7:30 p.m., in the Chapel. The title of Rivlin's lecture is "Why The Federal Budget Matters to Your Economic Future," in conjunction with this year's Levitt series titled "U.S. Budget: Power, Politics & Priorities." All presentations in this series are free and open to the public.

"When the presidential candidates continuously question each other's veracity, listeners are unable to determine if their policies, decisions, and positions are adequately founded intruth. The candidates are having trouble getting past questions of fact," said John Adams, a professor of communication at Hamilton College.

On October 7, acclaimed author Dorothy Allison began her visit to Hamilton with a talk titled "A Racecar Named Desire: The Intersections of Class, Sex and Gender in Contemporary American Culture,"  drawing on her childhood experience of going to stock car races. On October 8, Allison will speak at an open class session of College 130 from 1-3 p.m. in the KJ Red Pit, and will read from her new manuscript, "She Who," at 7:30 p.m. in the Chapel. Allison's visit to campus is part of the Kirkland Project's 2004-2005 series, "Class In Context:  Intersections of Class, Race, Gender, Sexuality and Nationality."

Jeffrey Rubino '05 is among winners of The New York section of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy (SAS) Student Awards. Presented annually to a graduatestudent and up to five undergraduate students who have performed outstanding research in applied spectroscopy, this year's SAS awards were sponsored by SpexCertiPrep (Metuchen, NJ) and Thermo Electron (Waltham, MA).  Rubino was honored for his work using electron paramagnetic resonance and visible spectroscopy to study enzyme reactions. Associate Professor of Chemistry Tim Elgren is his advisor. Rubino, a biology and chemistry major, is the son of Susan and Peter Rubino of Utica, N.Y.

When 11 Hamilton College students traveled to Kenya in May-June 2004 as part of a government class, little did they know they’d be meeting with a future Nobel Peace Prize winner. The students who participated in Kenya Field School met with Kenyan environmental activist and Green Belt founder Wangari Maathai, who was announced as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize on October 8. The trip was offered in conjunction with the government seminar class, Democratization and Kenya, taught by Professor of Government Steve Orvis. The group visited Maathai at her home in Nairobi on the last day of their trip. According to CNN, Maathai, 64, Deputy Environment Minister, is the first African woman to win the prize. She was cited for her work as leader of the Green Belt Movement that has planted more than 30 million trees across Africa.

Associate Professor of Russian Frank Sciacca travelled extensively through Ukraine during September. In L'viv he participated in the "Forum of Publishers" and discussed two books that he edited for Rodovid Press (Kyiv):  Ukrainian Icons:  13th-18th Centuries from Private Collections (2003) and Hanna Shabatura: Paintings (2004). He also conducted research at Pochaiv Dormition Monastery (Ternopil' region), Pechersk Monastery  (Kyiv), Rivne Museum of Icon Painting and the Museum of the Book (Ostrih).  Sciacca was also invited to participate in a series of expeditions conducted by the Honchar Museum of Ukrainian Folk Art (Kyiv).  The group travelled to remote corners of the Chernihiv, Vynnitsia, Volyn', Rivne and Khmel'nyts'ki regions collecting artifacts for the museum and interviewing "naive"/folk artists.

Hans Broedel, a medieval historian, says that Halloween is rooted in Celtic tradition, and in that culture many ghosts were friendly, coming back in the form of animals, including crows and cats. "Ghosts in the form of people, such as those we see in movies, are more common today than in the middle ages," Broedel says. "Exceptions were the grumpiest, scariest medieval 'ghosts' who academics called 'revenants' and were the animated corpses of the returning dead."