Each year, compiling the annual Impact Report gives us the opportunity to reflect on the successes, milestones, and collective generosity of the previous year — and to appreciate all that your support made possible.
For Impact 2026, looking back and looking ahead felt especially connected. Much of the past academic year brought the campus community, alumni, and trustees together to imagine Hamilton’s future and build on the strong foundation already in place. You’ll read more about that process and the shared vision that emerged from it in the special “Future Priorities” section.
That future builds on the strong foundation already in place. Explore the stories and data below to see your impact in action.
Lori Rava Dennison
Vice President
Year in Review
2025-26 Highlights
Over the past year, Hamilton students, faculty, staff, and alumni came together to think about the future, tackle challenges, and celebrate each other. From a historic NCAA title to research, creative work, and partnerships that reached across the Mohawk Valley and around the world, these stories capture some of the moments that defined the 2025-26 academic year.
Treasured Traditions
(Tap or hover on each image)
MATHEMATICS AND STATISTICS
“I hadn’t thought about a career in such a technical field, but now that I’ve worked through this project and gotten my hands on doing this math in a real scenario, I realize it’s something I enjoy a lot.”
— Hughes Williams ’26
Read more about how Hughes designed efficient delivery routes for Food Bank of CNY. ➜
SOCIOLOGY
Drawing on her own experience with cancer, June Cook-Selman ’26 studied pediatric patients’ narratives to better understand their emotional needs — research she hopes will inform better support for children during and after treatment.
CINEMA AND MEDIA STUDIES
With faculty mentorship and grant support from the Emerson Fund and Casstevens Family Fund, Mekhia Foster ’26 created her first documentary, In Her Care, which tells her grandmother’s story — and earned a spot in Philadelphia’s FirstGlance Film Festival.
BIOCHEMISTRY
“As a biochemistry major and music minor, I’ve learned to think about healing through both scientific and humanistic lenses. Music has been a source of joy in my life, and sharing that with others […] showed me how sound can reach people when words can’t.”
— Elise Kwon ’26
Meet Elise and Caroline Boies ’26, the 2026 Bristol Fellowship recipients. ➜
COMPUTER SCIENCE
Angel Apollos ’26, Ricaldo Lewis ’26, and Mia Wrisley ’26 put their computer science skills to work for the local community, creating an app that helps residents in the region make smarter recycling and waste-disposal decisions.
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
“My supervisor asked me, ‘If you were the curator walking into this room, how would you arrange the space and highlight different objects?’ It gave me the chance to […] consider how visitors might move through the space and what objects should be centered where.”
— Lily Watts ’26
Read about Lily’s curatorial exhibition internship at the Smithsonian. ➜
PHYSICS
After nearly four years of research with his physics professor, Isa Khan ’26 identified the host star of a planet in a system previously considered too difficult to resolve using ground-based observations.
CHEMISTRY
Grace Wilde ’26 synthesized part of a molecule that could help researchers understand how bacterial biofilms form — foundational work that could eventually contribute to new ways of preventing or treating chronic infections.
SOCIOLOGY
“At Hamilton, the idea of freedom and mobility within the College is valued, and the open curriculum is indicative of that. There’s this ideal that you want to learn, you want to love learning, and you want to do it in as many ways as you can.”
Outcomes
In a recent survey of the Class of 2025, 94.7 percent were employed or enrolled in graduate school within nine months of graduating.
BY THE NUMBERS
72.4%
employed in job or internship
19%
attending graduate school
1.5%
pursuing post-grad fellowship
Enrollment
Since the Class of 2010, Hamilton College has maintained a need-blind admission policy, inviting the most talented and deserving students to join its community while providing the financial aid they need to attend. The result? A growing applicant pool, increased selectivity, and a higher yield rate.
Giving & Endowment
Gifts from alumni, parents, and friends support every aspect of the Hamilton experience — classes, labs, resources, scholarships, student activities, and campus spaces.
Endowment by the Numbers
New Endowed Funds
The Steve and Barbara Anthony Fund for Building Maintenance and Renewal
The Missy Burke Partridge Admission Discretionary Fund
The Class of 1976 Career Center Internship Fund
The Gross Family Summer Research Fund
The Hamilton Soccer Fund
The Jon Hind Athletics Discretionary Fund
The Lifton Curb Entertainment Entrepreneurial Endowment
The Gene Long Memorial Scholarship
The Mannix Family Fund for the Classics
The Mary McLean Evans ’82 Scholarship
The Mary McLean Evans ’82 and Allen H. Van Dyke Internship Fund
The Daniel J. O’Leary Arboretum Fund
The Sequoia Summer Research Fund
The Singer Family Scholarship
The Alice and Roger Soderberg Scholarship
The Missy Burke Partridge Admission Discretionary Fund
The Class of 1976 Career Center Internship Fund
The Gross Family Summer Research Fund
The Hamilton Soccer Fund
The Jon Hind Athletics Discretionary Fund
The Lifton Curb Entertainment Entrepreneurial Endowment
The Gene Long Memorial Scholarship
The Mannix Family Fund for the Classics
The Mary McLean Evans ’82 Scholarship
The Mary McLean Evans ’82 and Allen H. Van Dyke Internship Fund
The Daniel J. O’Leary Arboretum Fund
The Sequoia Summer Research Fund
The Singer Family Scholarship
The Alice and Roger Soderberg Scholarship
Athletics, Academics, and Enduring Friendships: The Jon Hind ’80 Legacy
Hind’s impact on the College is far-reaching — among his many accomplishments, he steered the full reintegration of Hamilton athletics into the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) and led major facility upgrades, efforts that enhance the student experience on the Hill. In recognition of his dedication and achievements, three of Hind’s closest friends — Trustees Ron Pressman ’80, Greg Hoogkamp ’82, P’25, and Monty Pooley ’84, P’16,’19 — established the Jon Hind Athletics Discretionary Fund in 2025.
The Ultimate Connector
Those who were lucky enough to know Mary McLean Evans ’82 described her as the ultimate connector. Fittingly, earlier this year, her friends, including members of the Board of Trustees, established an endowed fund in honor of Evans: The Mary McLean Evans ’82 Scholarship, which will provide scholarship support and funding for Career Center resources intended for students who demonstrate significant financial need. Additionally, Evans and her longtime partner, Dr. Allen Van Dyke, established The Mary McLean Evans ’82 and Allen H. Van Dyke Internship Fund, which will provide cost-of-living assistance to Hamilton students who plan to take a paid or unpaid summer internship.
The Scientists of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Tom Ducibella ’69 and his wife, Angela Nannini, believe strongly in the power of mentorship. They know firsthand how the profound relationships between professors and students, mentors and mentees, foster the passage of expertise, guidance, and knowledge across time. In alignment with this value, the couple initiated the Tom Ducibella and Angela Nannini Distinguished Professorship in spring 2025. This fund will support a professorship in the Biology Department to be awarded to a tenured faculty member at Hamilton.Future Priorities
Steven Tepper
President
For more than 230 years, Hamilton has adapted, innovated, and responded to new opportunities.
We need to do so again.
Higher education faces many new challenges: A rapid and sustained drop in the number of traditional college age students. Rising costs. Political pressures. Evolving market demands, especially from technology and AI. And declining public support.
Steven TepperPresident
Just as we have done in the past, Hamilton is responding with creativity and innovation. Last year, hundreds of faculty, staff, students, and alumni generated more than 1,000 ideas as part of our Aspirational Design process. This approach to what most call strategic planning not only produced great ideas, it helped us build the muscle to be adaptable, flexible, and collaborative.
This is not about changing Hamilton — it’s about doubling down on what we do well — preparing our students to be first-rate thinkers who analyze information, think critically, come up with ideas, and write and communicate effectively. This is our academic core. The forces changing the world aren’t making a Hamilton education less relevant; they’re making the qualities Hamilton has always developed far more valuable.
We’re focusing on our ability to educate the whole person, not simply to acquire knowledge and skills for an individual’s benefit — but to work with other humans, to collaborate, to advance ideas, to build stronger communities and companies, together.
Beloved Professor Sidney Wertimer famously liked to say “Hamilton trains you for nothing, but prepares you for everything.” But I humbly suggest that maybe Hamilton has trained us for something, it’s trained us for this moment. This is our moment to lead.
Onward!
A Shared Vision Takes Shape
What does the world need that Hamilton is uniquely positioned to do, given who we are, our strengths, and our history?
Throughout the last year, this question guided the campus community as hundreds of faculty, staff, students, alumni, and trustees worked together to imagine Hamilton’s future, and to consider how the College can build on its enduring strengths while sharpening what makes the College distinctive.
BY THE NUMBERS
400+
engaged community members
200
participants
15
charrettes
(6 focus, 3 faculty mini, 2 community, 2 synthesis, 2 alumni)
(6 focus, 3 faculty mini, 2 community, 2 synthesis, 2 alumni)
7
themes
(Open Curriculum 2.0, Democracy & Imagination, Creative Campus & “What If”, Hamilton 360, Practicing the Liberal Arts, Innovation, Technology & Authentic Intelligence, Athletics)
(Open Curriculum 2.0, Democracy & Imagination, Creative Campus & “What If”, Hamilton 360, Practicing the Liberal Arts, Innovation, Technology & Authentic Intelligence, Athletics)
1,000s
of ideas generated
40
prototypes tested
Where Hamilton is Headed
As technology changes how people live and work and the problems societies face grow more complex, the qualities that have long distinguished a Hamilton education — independent thinking, clear communication, curiosity, and strong relationships — matter more than ever.
Our strategic planning process identified several priorities that build on what Hamilton already does exceptionally well while preparing the College and its students for what comes next. The priorities that follow focus on strengthening those qualities through academic innovation, the student experience, and investments that will sustain Hamilton for generations to come.
Delivering an exceptional Hamilton education for generations to come requires the College to remain accessible, financially strong, and able to attract talented students in an increasingly competitive higher education landscape.
Hamilton will continue its commitment to admitting the very best students regardless of their family’s ability to pay while stewarding the College’s resources for long-term financial strength. Together with investments in residence halls and shared spaces that strengthen how students live, connect, and build community, these commitments will help make the College an even more compelling choice for future generations of students.
The College is also exploring even more ways for students to benefit from one of Hamilton’s greatest strengths: its alumni community. By expanding access to alumni mentorship, expertise, and professional connections, Hamilton can help ensure that every student has relationships that help them translate their education into opportunities beyond the Hill.
Hamilton also has an opportunity to tell this story more clearly. Strengthening the College's national visibility will help prospective students, families, alumni, and others understand what distinguishes a Hamilton education and why its defining strengths are increasingly valuable.
Deep interdisciplinary learning is at the heart of a Hamilton education. The College is building on that foundation by pairing our rigorous liberal education with more high-impact, real-world experiences. Students will graduate knowing how to connect ideas and perspectives, work with others, exercise judgment, and put their knowledge into action.
Several emerging academic priorities put this idea into practice:
- Co-Labs that bring faculty from different disciplines together to teach a shared cohort of students across an interdisciplinary set of courses built around a common theme.
-
Impact Terms that create dedicated January and summer windows for instructor-led intensives that connect students directly to partner organizations and field sites off the Hill.
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The Hamilton Integrated Learning Lab, or HILL Fellowship, first implemented with key partner the Griffiss Institute, immerses a cohort of students in a full-time summer program combining leadership development, substantive partner project work, and exposure to central New York’s innovation economy.
Some of the most important parts of a Hamilton education happen outside the classroom. Living and learning together helps students form lasting relationships, encounter different viewpoints, develop independence, and learn how to contribute to a community.
Hamilton is exploring ways to strengthen that experience by investing in the places where students and the broader community come together, including residence halls, informal gathering spaces, and athletic venues. Together, they create more opportunities for connection, conversation, College pride, and a stronger sense of community.
Athletics is another important part of that experience. Student-athletes develop teamwork, resilience, discipline, and leadership through competition, while games and other shared experiences bring students, faculty, staff, alumni, and families together, building connection and College pride. Working with Hamilton’s new director of athletics, the College is undertaking a comprehensive review of the athletics program to identify opportunities to build on its strengths and strengthen its role in the student and community experience.
The initiatives the College is pursuing are serious undertakings that will require significant investments in the people, resources, and infrastructure needed to bring them to life and sustain them.
Success will mean ensuring the Hamilton education that has transformed generations of lives is even stronger for the generations ahead: more connected, more expansive, and designed to give every student the knowledge, relationships, experiences, and confidence to put their education to work in a rapidly changing world.
Thank you to everyone who supported Hamilton in 2025-26
The College is grateful for the generosity of the full Hamilton community. This honor roll recognizes the names of donors who are alumni, parents, faculty, staff, and foundations.
The power of the HQ, how it came to be, the story behind it
On July 1, The Hamilton Quad (HQ) was launched to the alumni community. The result of more than a year of development, enlisting the guidance of alumni volunteers including the Board of Trustees, The HQ is a platform totally unique to Hamilton. Explore and start connecting at hamilton.edu/hq, the App Store, and Google Play. Look for more of the story behind The HQ in the upcoming issue of Glad & Glen.
