The latest report of a working group assessing student
learning at Hamilton is shedding more light on the factors influencing
students' choices of courses since distribution requirements were eliminated
with the new curriculum in fall 2001.
Project Director Dan Chambliss, the Christian A. Johnson
Excellence in Teaching Professor of Sociology, said the project's research has
found that students rely heavily on professors' reputations when making course
selections, suggesting they are making better use of social networks.
"The kids who are a little bit motivated, who make the
effort to find the right professors, can have a great experience here, and have
worlds of opportunity open to them," Chambliss said. "I like to say that they
own the place."
The document is the third of five annual reports being
submitted to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as part of the Hamilton Project
for Assessment of Liberal Arts Education. The project is funded by a $610,000
grant from Mellon to assess student learning in a liberal arts setting. It was
extended two years beyond its original three-year term to allow for the
collection of additional data and further analysis of findings in hopes that
the assessment project can become a model for other liberal arts colleges. More ...
In the vidblink of an eye
Go just about anywhere and you'll find someone talking on a
cellphone or sending a text message. But how effective could the latest
generation of these devices -- video cellphones -- be in communicating messages?
That's the question John Adams, visiting professor of
communication, and Josh Huling '05 asked last summer. "We wanted to determine
if video cellphones would be an effective mass communications tool," said
Huling, a communication major. "Given the constraints of this relatively new
medium in terms of its small screen size and low resolution, could we use it to
send an effective message'?" More ...
It is indeed fitting that he will be buried on this Hill at this
College, to which he so passionately gave his life, among his friends
and colleagues. -- Kevin Kennedy ’70, speaking to a standing-room-only
audience gathered in the Chapel on Feb. 10, 2005, for a memorial
service honoring Sidney Wertimer, professor emeritus of economics, who
died on February 1.
* * * *
Hey Connor,
Greetings from Antarctica, where there are many icebergs and huge
mountains. Today I got to see a Weddell seal and a cool purple
jellyfish while on Vega Island, which is near the tip of the Antarctic
Peninsula. Luckily it is not too cold in Antarctica right now because
it is the summertime, so we could spend some time on land. In addition
to seeing lots of cool views, I am also conducting science experiments
on ice shelves. Hope you get lots of e-mails from people around the
world.
Gemma -- Gemma Kirkwood ’05 to a third-grader who was collecting
e-mails from around the world and contacted Hamilton to see if he could
get one from Antarctica. Gemma was one of three Hamilton students to
join an international team of researchers who spent a month on board
the RV L.M. Gould this winter studying whether events like the recent
ice shelf breakups have occurred in the past 10,000 years or if they
are unprecedented events.
