Hamilton College has received a $500,000 Department Development Award from Research Corporation (RC) to increase faculty and technical staffing in the chemistry and physics departments. Only five U.S. colleges have received these RC awards since the first grants were awarded in 1989. Proposals for the award are by invitation only.
The goal of these awards is to provide a catalyst for enhancing single or multiple science departments in pursuit of academic excellence, according to Research Corporation. A biochemist, astronomer or astrophysicist, in addition to an instrument technician and a machinist will join the respective departments at Hamilton. Expanding the faculty will enable the chemistry and physics departments to offer more and varied research opportunities for students and expand curricular offerings.
"We see this award as a partnership with Hamilton College, whose goal is the evolution of its science departments into nationally distinguished interactive and interdisciplinary programs, said James Gentile, president of Research Corporation. "We believe that the sciences at Hamilton College can stand out as a model for science as it will be practiced in the 21st century," said Gentile.
"After an extensive review process employing external consultants, Research Corporation selected our chemistry and physics programs deeming them ready to move to new levels of research excellence," said Tim Elgren, Hamilton College professor of chemistry, past-president of the Council on Undergraduate Research and project director for this award.
Hamilton's chemistry and physics faculty members are heavily engaged in research and their projects are often externally funded. "The success of the departments can be directly attributed to a focused team effort to integrated research and teaching," said Elgren. "Faculty members regularly produce publications, often with student co-authors who are intimately involved in their research," said Elgren.
Thirty-one grants, totaling almost $4 million, were awarded to Hamilton's chemistry and physics departments from 2000 to 2005. During the same period, nearly 80 papers were published by faculty members in the chemistry and physics departments; half of these papers were co-authored by students.
For example, Meghan Dunn, a 2006 graduate, has co-authored five papers on atmospheric chemistry. Dunn's research has appeared in the International Journal of Quantum Chemistry and the Journal of the American Chemical Society, among others. She is one of the seven Hamilton undergraduates who have been awarded Goldwater scholarships since 2001. The scholarship is the premier national undergraduate award in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering.
Hamilton students have also been recognized for their outstanding achievements in physics. Brandon Collings, a 1994 graduate, received the Apker Award of the American Physics Society, which is given to the top undergraduate physics student among all U.S. colleges and universities that do not grant doctoral degrees. Additionally, three Hamilton graduates have been named finalists.
Other examples of Hamilton's commitment to science include:
- A new $56 million integrated Science Center, the largest building project in the history of the college, opened September 2005. The building was designed with special consideration toward encouraging interdisciplinary work, especially in the areas of neuroscience, environmental studies and biochemistry.
- The sciences at Hamilton have grown tremendously over the past decade. The Hamilton summer science research program has evolved during this period from 20 students to more than 70; faculty participation has doubled from 13 to 26.
- For the four classes of 2003-06, the number of chemistry graduates has increased to an average of 18 per year. In the same manner, the number of physics graduates has increased to an average of seven per year.
- Hamilton College Professor of Chemistry George Shields, with funding from the National Science Foundation and the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, initiated an intensive summer research program for entering first-year students designed to retain women and minority science majors and to increase the number of science graduates who pursue graduate programs.
Research Corporation is the second foundation established in the U.S., and the only foundation devoted to the advancement of science. In 2005, RC awarded $5.6 million in grants.
