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Ron Chernow, award-winning biographer, will give the Victor Johnson Lecture at Hamilton College on Thursday, Sept. 30. Chernow will present his lecture, "Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Imagined America," in the Hamilton College Chapel at 4:15 p.m.

The Nominations Committee of the Alumni Council invites members of the on-campus community, alumni, and others to provide the Committee with recommendations for the annual Hamilton College Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award. In October, the Alumni Council will act on the nomination put forward by the Committee.  The formal award presentation will take place at Hamilton during the Spring 2005 meetings of the Alumni Council.

Cheng Li, the William R. Kenan Professor of Government, was interviewed by the BBC World Service on August 17.  Li discussed the checks and balances in the Chinese political system.

Ryan Burke '04 was featured in a Kennebec Journal (Maine) article (8/15/04) about the cross-country bike trip he's taking with fellow Hamilton graduates to support cancer-prevention programs. Burke, Brian Alward '04 and Cameron Feist '04 left New Jersey in July and hope to reach Portland, Ore. by October. According to the article, "The trio -- all recent graduates of Hamilton College in upstate New York -- started by raising money in the months leading up to their July departure. The idea for a cross-country cycling trip started as a way for three friends to spend time together after graduation and before they start jobs in the fall. Then, they decided to incorporate fund raising to support cancer research, Burke said during phone interview Thursday from Harrisonville, Mo."

New York State Route 12B, the main thoroughfare into Clinton from the north, is closed about one mile north of the Village so that workers can replace a 100-year-old stone culvert. Detour signs direct traffic into Clinton via Limberlost Road (Route 5B), Route 5, and Route 233, adding about five minutes to the trip. The road is expected to reopen before Labor Day, but after students return to campus for the start of the academic year on Monday, Aug. 30. Visitors approaching campus from the south should not be affected by the closure.

Schuyler Chapman '03 participated in the Mass Red Ribbon Ride, a three-day journey from the Berkshires to Salem, Mass. The Mass Red Ribbon Ride is sponsored collaboratively by 18 agencies who serve HIV/AIDS communities throughout the state. The money will be used to assist the 15,000 people in Mass. who have contracted HIV.

Alexandra Geertz, a 2004 graduate of Hamilton, was recently awarded The Marleigh Grayer Ryan Student Prize sponsored by the New York Conference on Asian Studies (NYCAS). The competition was open to all undergraduate and graduate students at a college or university in New York State who study any geographic region of Asia, Asia in diaspora, and Asian American studies.

Heidi Ravven, professor of religious studies, received an International Institute for Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics Best Paper Award for her paper, "Spinoza's Systems Theory of Ethics." She recently delivered the paper at the organization's international conference in Baden-Baden, Germany.  Consequently, Dr. George Lasker, president of the IIAS, has offered to devote a symposium at next year's annual IIAS conference to Ravven's work on Spinoza and ethics.

Armed with a gallon of liquid nitrogen connected to a small vacuum device, Tim Weaver '05 set off for a local bee farm in the beginning of summer. Weaver vacuumed the bees into the liquid nitrogen, where they were instantly frozen. Now, he is working with Tom Heacock '06 and Associate Professor of Biology Herm Lehman to examine TBH and octopamine levels in insects, which may help them explain how genes and behavior are related.

Hamilton College hosted the 3rd MERCURY Conference in Computational Chemistry from July 29-31. This national conference featured seven talks by invited speakers and 40 poster presentations by undergraduates, and was organized by Hamilton College Professor and Chair of Chemistry George C. Shields.