All News

Archival Assistant Katherine Collett recently presented a paper titled "Nicola Meets God: Religion During Term and Vacation in 'Antonia Forest's Marlow Series'" at the 2002 Children's Literature Association Annual Conference.

Director of the Hamilton Jazz Archive and Lecturer in Saxophone Monk Rowe attended the Advanced Oral History Seminar at the University of California at Berkeley, August 11-16. Rowe was one of 25 people from the United States, Japan and Singapore to be accepted to attend the event and share their experiences in gathering oral histories to learn more about ethical, legal and technology issues. He represented the Hamilton College Jazz Archive.

Hamilton students Stephanie Dunn ’03, Milagros Gordillo-Guffanti ’05, Nichola Meserve ’03 and Hannah Stahle ’03 have spent 10 weeks of their summer doing science research under the direction of Professor of Biology David Gapp. The group has been collecting blood and shell samples from turtles found in the Utica Marsh, Westmoreland, and the Rome Sands Plains. A few years ago, turtles in the Utica Marsh died from diabetes. The research being done by Professor Gapp will hopefully prevent this from happening again. Along with looking for diabetes, the group has been performing several tests studying contractions of the small intestine, differences in regulations due to added hormones or elements, regional differences between smooth and circular muscle and the location of certain hormones.

In 2000 Dr. John Lott, a scholar and researcher published a paper on affirmative action, police departments and crime. The paper, “Does a Helping Hand Put Others at Risk,” investigates the relationship between the adoption of affirmative action hiring policies and crime; Lott concludes that the resultant hiring of racial minorities or women police officers they can expect a corresponding increase in crime rates. Professor of Mathematics Larry Knop and senior sociology/mathematics double major Shauna Sweet felt these statistics warranted further investigation. The April 2000 article was published in the Journal of Economic Inquiry, and the findings were based on the analysis of Law Enforcement Management and Administrative statistics surveys administered by the Department of Justice, and FBI Uniform Crime Reports.

"Slightly Motivated," an indie film written by Hamilton alumnus Peter Muggleworth '01, is being shot this week on the Hamilton campus. The Continentals' softball field is serving as the backdrop of a little league baseball game, which features a number of local children as team members. Muggleworth, a foreign language/political science major while at Hamilton, spent the last year writing "Slightly Motivated," which takes a wry look at the life of three recent college graduates. Hamilton alumnus Neil Basu '01 is cast in the film as Doug, one of the graduates. After shooting additional scenes at the Clinton Cinema, the crew will return to their home in Boston to complete filming. A premiere will be held in Clinton when the film is completed.

Hamilton College graduate David Nathans, a leader in organizing the "Hamilton Collects" exhibition series and a strong proponent of the visual arts at Hamilton, has been selected as interim director of the Emerson Gallery for the 2002-2003 academic year. Nathans brings to this role an impressive educational background in business and the arts coupled with significant professional experience in the museum world.

Some young children are better than others at making friends. Child psychologists are working toward determining what skills more socially adept children possess, and what can be done to help children who are having a difficult time building friendships. Assistant Professor of Psychology Julie Dunsmore, Jamie Abaied '04, Liz Casey '03 and Ellen Jamison '04 collected and analyzed data this summer in efforts to answer these questions.

A letter to the editor by Richard Fuller, Hamilton dean of admission and financial aid, was published in The Wall Street Journal Aug. 5, 2002. Fuller wrote to add support to a WSJ article about the need for high school guidance counselors. "A great many of our youth will never know the opportunities that exist for them in higher education because they either don't know they exist or they don't know how to get there," Fuller wrote. He noted that Hamilton College participates in the Higher Education Opportunity program that provides academic, social and financial assistance to disadvantaged students. "But even these efforts require there to be someone in the guidance office for a prospective student to interface with...someone to tell the students and their parents they can go to college and it can be affordable."

Director of the Hamilton College Jazz Archive Monk Rowe, presented talks to students at Sauquoit Elementary School in June and to teachers in the Utica Arts and Education Institute in July. The subject of the talks was the jazz photos of the late great bassist Milt Hilton. Mr. Hilton’s gifts of photos to the college were used.

Richard Bernstein, a 1980 graduate of Hamilton College, and chief U.S. strategist at Merrill Lynch,was interviewed for a New York Times article about Federal Reserve rate increases. "'Either you get big gains in earnings growth and the Fed is tightening, or you get mediocre gains in earnings and the Fed is on hold,' Mr. Bernstein said. The correlation between higher interest rates and earnings growth has exceeded 80 percent during the years Alan Greenspan has been chairman of the Federal Reserve, he added."