More than 125 Hamilton students will spend at least part of their summer on campus doing research with various faculty members. Ninety-one students will conduct science research with faculty from the anthropology, biology, chemistry, geosciences, neuroscience, physics and psychology departments. Projects include "Profiling Microbial Diversity in Green Lake," "Developing a Methodology for Computational Drug Design," and "Modeling Loop Quantum Gravity."
Twenty students have received funding from the Emerson Foundation. Created in 1997, the Emerson Foundation Grant program was designed to provide students with significant opportunities to work collaboratively with faculty members, researching an area of interest. This summer's projects include "Team Freedom: Reality and the War on Terror from The Bush White House; "One Step Forward or Backward? The Self-Help Revolution and Gender; and "African Studies: Shame, Skin Color, Spirituality." The students will make public presentations of their research during the 2007-08 academic year.
To enhance student research around issues of public affairs, the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center funds student-faculty research through its Levitt Research Fellows Program. This year 17 students will research such projects as "Katrina: Disaster Brings Opportunity to a Failing School System; "The Link Between African Philanthropic Endeavors and Celebrity Patrons"; and "Abraham Lincoln: How Speeches and Policies Changed the Presidency." The program is open to all students who wish to spend the summer working in collaboration with a faculty member on an issue related to public affairs. Students receive a summer stipend and some expense money, and spend 10 weeks in the summer working intensively with a faculty mentor.
The Levitt Center also offers two summer fellowships for civic engagement; one for community service and one for community-based research. This year Evan Torres '08 received the Community-Based Research Fellowship. He will serve as program evaluation assistant with the Associate Director for Community Research in the Levitt Center, Judy Owens-Manley, for the HOPE VI Project in Utica.
Jenney Stringer '08 received the Community Service Fellowship, which focuses on providing support to initiatives in the Utica area. She will be working with Owens-Manley on "Creating Community Gardens."
