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Hamilton College has received a $75,000 grantfrom the George I. Alden Trust to equip its new Remote Collaboration Facility(RCF) with laptop computers.

The new facility is designed to explore the uses of two-way, interactive videoand state-of-the-art computing technologies for collaborative learning,resource sharing and enhancement of the liberal arts.

"This grant will enable Hamilton to continue providing its faculty with thelatest technological tools for instruction," said President Eugene M. Tobin."We are deeply appreciative of the Alden Trust's generosity toward andconfidence in Hamilton and the innovative programs we are developing for ourstudents."

Hamilton's RCF is designed to: support electronic seminars involving facultyand students at Hamilton with counterparts at other colleges, businesses orgovernment offices; allow faculty at one location to teach students at two ormore locations; permit legislators, mayors, artists, journalists, chiefexecutive offices and other experts to participate in Hamilton courses viavideoteleconference; and build collaborative learning and research activitieswith students and faculty around the world.

The laptops will provide critical flexibility to the operation of the RCF,according to Tobin. "When equipped with laptops, entire classes using the RCFwill be able to go on-line simultaneously, with the instructor guiding studentsin appropriate uses of electronic bulletin boards and other networkedresources," Tobin said.

The laptops will also support "studio courses," which will move activitiestraditionally performed outside the classroom (exercises, problem solving,simulations) to the center of the course, thereby emphasizing small-groupdiscovery activities.

"This new resource not only opens access to an electronic avenue of extensiveinformational resources," Tobin said, "but it directly links students withfaculty, with one another and with their counterparts at institutions aroundthe world in a structured classroom setting. Access of this sort is rare, ifnot entirely unknown, at a small liberal arts college."

The primary interest of the George I. Alden Trust, founded in 1912 and basedin Worcester, Mass., is education. According to the Foundation Reporter,"the trust favors educational institutions combining academic excellence withefficient and economically sound administration."

Hamilton is a highly selective, residential college that offers its 1,650students a rigorous liberal arts curriculum. It is the third oldest college inNew York State and is named in honor of U.S. statesman Alexander Hamilton, acharter trustee of the college's predecessor, the Hamilton-Oneida Academy.

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