All News

Six prizes were awarded in three categories in the annual Public Speaking Competition on Saturday, March 8, in the Chapel. The finalists were chosen after an open preliminary round held in February. Speakers’ presentations were either persuasive or informative in nature, and in one category students were asked to address an assigned topic.

Professor of History Robert Paquette was awarded the Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick Prize for Academic Freedom at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Ronald Reagan Banquet on March 7 in Washington, D.C.  The prize honors the memory of Kirkpatrick, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, for her fierce defense of academic freedom.

Associate Professor of English Katherine H. Terrell presented a paper, titled "From Courtly Love to Court Poetics: Dunbar's Petitions and the Scottish Transformation of Tradition," at the University of Cambridge.

Although the annual homicide rate in NYC dropped from 2,245 to 333 between 1991 and 2013, civilians are now less trusting of law enforcement than they ever have been.  No era before has faced such a looming reality of Big Brother as we do in the modern day. Renown author Christopher Dickey, who currently serves as the Paris Bureau chief and Middle East regional editor for The Daily Beast, presented a lecture on March 6 on “Policing, Politics and Paranoia in Post 9/11 America.”

Doug Lemov ’90 returned to the Hill on March 6 to initiate a policy conversation on public education reform.  While encouraging dialogue and discussion throughout his lecture, Lemov expressed his own ideas of how the current educational system can progress in the midst of poverty. In his presentation, titled “Which Reforms Will Save American Education – and Which Will Kill It?” Lemov addressed the different ways in which the nation must improve “the most important sector in a functioning democracy.”

Professor of History Shoshana Keller gave a talk on "The Puzzle of Child Labor in Uzbekistan" on March 3 at Colgate University. This was a presentation of research on the economic and social roots of the Uzbek use of coerced child labor to harvest cotton every fall. Her talk was sponsored by Colgate's Russian and Eurasian Studies program

Hamilton’s co-ed a capella group The Hamiltones, performed at New York University (NYU)  on March 1. The Hamiltones opened for the NYU all-male a cappella group, Mass Transit, and performed four songs.

Thomas Tull ’92, founder and CEO of Legendary Entertainment and a member of Hamilton’s Board of Trustees, was part of a group of foundation and business leaders invited by President Barack Obama to discuss his “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative at the White House on Feb. 27.

Some people might not think of art as a force for social or political transformation, but one artist, Alfredo Jaar, has been evoking change through art for decades. On March 5, the Chilean-born and New York-based artist, architect, and filmmaker delivered a captivating two-hour lecture to the Hamilton community in a crowded Bradford Auditorium. His talk was part of the Art Department’s Visiting Artist Series.

Hamilton College and Colgate University jointly announced today their partnership as new contributing members in the nonprofit, online learning platform edX. Founded by Harvard University and MIT, edX currently offers more than 150 courses in many areas of study, including the arts and humanities, public health, law, math and computer science. Its focus is to create access to the world’s best education globally, improve on-campus education and conduct research to enhance teaching and learning.