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Hamilton is proud to salute the 22 student members of  Hamilton College Emergency Medical Services (HCEMS). The week of November 10 is National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Week.  This is a week set aside to pay tribute to the many students nationwide who volunteer their time to serve their campus community as EMTs.

Professor of French and Africana Studies Tracy Sharpley-Whiting gave a lecture at  Northwestern University's "100 Years of The Souls of Black Folk: A Celebration" conference in October.  The conference celebrated the centenary of the publication in Chicago of  The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. DuBois.  Sharpley-Whiting's lecture was "Negro at Paris," which dealt with DuBois's francopholia and France's negrophilia during the heyday of the Jazz in Paris (1920s) in the aftermath of the Great War (WWI). Other presenters were Lawrence Bobo (Harvard University); Cheryl Wall (Rutgers); and Darlene Clark Hine (Northwestern). 

Tracy Sharpley-Whiting, professor of French and chair of Africana Studies, was interviewed for an on-line article that denounces hip hop music for glorifying pimping for Women's ENews. Hip hop, popular urban rap music, was the second most-popular music genre in 2002, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Hip hop lyrics often contain references to pimping and prostitution, which sends a bad message to teenage girls, says Sharpley-Whiting.

Heather Buchman, visiting assistant professor of music and the Hamilton College Orchestra conductor, conducted a piece at the concert of the Society for New Music on Nov. 9, in the Hosmer Auditorium, Everson Museum in Syracuse. Buchman conducted Barbara White's omposition, "Learning to See."

Michelle Walvoord '94, who majored in geology at Hamilton and is now a post-doctoral researcher at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in Denver, has published new research in the November 7 edition of Science. A team of USGS and university scientists led by Walvoord found that desert subsoils in parts of the southwest contain large reservoirs of nitrates that had been previously unrecognized in desert nitrogen budgets.

Associate Professor of History Shoshana Keller published an article, "Research Report: Library Conditions in Uzbekistan," in Central Eurasian Studies Review Vol. 2, No. 3 (2003): 17-18. It was about her work experiences in Tashkent, Uzbekistan this past summer. She also served as discussant for a panel titled "Cultural and Political Spheres Intersecting," at the Fourth Annual Conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Society held at Harvard University on October 2­5.

Professor of Religious Studies Heidi Ravven presented a paper at the Society for Empirical Ethics Annual Meeting, held November 7-9 at Marlboro College, Brattleboro, Vt. The meeting theme was "Flourishing - What Can the Sciences and Philosophy Learn From Each Other About Human Well Being?" Ravven participated in a panel discussion, "Habits of the Heart and Mind," where she gave a paper titled "Can Ethics Be Naturalized? James vs. Spinoza."

Dr. Jack Gordon '72 returned to the Hill on November 4 to speak on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Dr. Jack Gordon has lectured on the two Kennedy assassinations and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King for more than 25 years, and has been a consultant for PBS, NOVA and 20/20. This month marks the 40th anniversary of the death of JFK, and Gordon said that many documentaries and specials will revisit the event. Gordon pointed out, however, that these major news sources will continue to endorse the Warren Commission's lone assassin theory, as they have since the report was issued 39 years ago, despite significant evidence to refute the findings of the commission.

George Shields, chair and Winslow Professor of Chemistry, gave an invited lecture at the 35th American Chemical Society Central Regional Meeting in Pittsburgh. His talk was titled "Formation of MERCURY to Enhance Undergraduate Computational Chemistry: Accurate pKa Calculations in Aqueous Solution, Progress and Challenges." MERCURY provides access to high performance computing resources or supercomputers for chemistry students and researchers at seven liberal arts institutions in the Northeast.

John Campbell, a founder of the rhetoric and inquiry movement, discussed his theories regarding Darwinism, American pedagogy, and liberal education in a public lecture at Hamilton on November 6.