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Associate Professor of Government Sharon Werning Rivera has published an on-line version of a simulated election campaign exercise with Congressional Quarterly Press. The simulation, titled “Elections in West Europa,” is designed to teach students about party systems, campaigns and government formation in established democracies by using active learning strategies.

Adirondack Adventure (AA), Hamilton's eight-day outdoor program for incoming students, and its sister program Urban Service Experience (USE), welcomed 246 members of the class of 2013 on Aug. 14.

The environmental studies major with a focus in the humanities is not based on geology or biology. Rather, it highlights the philosophical and historical aspects of nature’s wonder. Julie DiRoma ’10 is channeling this interest in environmental theory into a potential career in policy or education. Although a scientific mode of thinking is ideal for some students, DiRoma prefers to discuss the human angle on nature. This summer, she attends environmental sustainability councils as a part of her internship with the Syracuse-Onondaga County Planning Agency (SOCPA) in the Onondaga County Government.

Physicists are often forced to work through tedious preparations only to take quick measurements and arrive at small, sometimes inconsequential conclusions. Therefore, much of modern research consists of trying to find ways to increase efficiency without sacrificing quality results. Lauren Vilardo ’11 and Valerie Hanson ’10 are developing a faster, more accurate measurement of the absolute polarization of 3Helium (3He). This summer they're collaborating with Professor of Physics Gordon Jones and Associate Professor of Physics Brian Collett to do so. 

The Oath of Lasagna is not a pledge to Italian food; it is a modern-day revision of the Hippocratic Oath, an ethical code of conduct for doctors. Historians believe that the Greek physician Hippocrates, the “father of western medicine,” wrote the Oath, thereby taking medicine from a practice of superstition to one of ethical obligation and rationality. This summer, Julianne Tylko ’10 is studying the relationship between the Hippocratic Oath and modern versions like the Oath of Lasagna, devised by Dr. Louis Lasagna in 1964.

In the words of Jane Hannon ’11, Dr. Dale Purves is “kind of a big deal.” As the director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and George Barth Geller Professor for Research in Neurobiology at Duke University, he is an ideal role model for Hannon, who is a neuroscience major and aspiring expert on the human brain’s machinery. She has an internship in Purves’ lab this summer, and from her desk she can watch him edit the next edition of his textbook. “I get a kick out of it,” she said. “I know that I’ll be seeing those edits very soon because his book will accompany the neuroscience class that I’ll be taking in the fall at Hamilton.”

The Second Interdisciplinary Symposium on Iconic Books will take place at Hamilton College on Friday-Sunday, Sept. 4-6. The event is hosted by Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate in cooperation with James W. Watts of Syracuse University. Funding is from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Hamilton College and Syracuse University. The symposium is free and members of the public may attend but are asked to register.

While other summer researchers in physics are working on projects like aCORN and the SEOP neutron polarizer, Andrew Portuguese ’11 is like a stage technician who jumps between multiple projects. He is currently creating a graphical user interface for a magnetic field mapper along with Professor of Physics Gordon Jones. The interface and mapper are designed to better the lives of scientists at NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology).

Anna C. Oldfield, Asian Studies Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, has authored a video-based Turkish language learning module for a three-year Department of Education International Research and Studies Program grant.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Nathan Goodale with co-author Ian Kuijt (University of Notre Dame) recently published an article titled “Daily Practice and the Organization of Space at the Dawn of Agriculture: A Case Study from the Near East”  in American Antiquity.