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Studying South African apartheid literature as an Emerson-sponsored summer research project was more than an intellectual endeavor for Ntokozo Xaba ’08; it was about understanding something his family experienced first hand. Xaba, now of Dethewini, South Africa, was born into a state of emergency during apartheid, the social and political policy of racial segregation and discrimination enforced by white minority governments in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. His name means “happiness,” a way of brightening up bad times, and is a common one for his generation.

While most 2005 Hamilton graduates said good-bye to the college in May, Aletha Asay ’05 will be returning to the Hill for the 2005-2006 academic year to work as the new Hamilton College SHINE Coordinator. Project SHINE (Students Helping In the Naturalization of Elders) links college students with older immigrants and refugees seeking to learn English and achieve U.S. citizenship. Students tutor elders in English, helping them become more actively engaged in their communities and teaching the U.S. history and civics needed to pass the citizenship exam. Project SHINE in central New York began with a partnership between Hamilton and Utica College and is supported by a three-year grant from Temple University’s Center for Intergenerational Learning and Learn and Serve America.

Bryden Considine and Kateri Whitebean, both '08, are no strangers to summer research. Whitebean (Fabius, N.Y.) is spending her fourth summer doing research at Hamilton. As a participant in the Oneida Indian Nation Program for high school students, she gained experience in several different labs in the summers following her sophomore and junior years. Last summer, both Whitebean and Considine (Cabot, Vt.) participated in the STEP/Dreyfus program for incoming freshmen, where they spent six weeks working with Associate Professor of Biology Herman Lehman in a neuroscience lab. "The experience I gained then only furthered my interests in doing research again," said Whitebean.

Lisa Schaaf of Erie, Pa., and Mary Ann Vicari of Baltimore, Md., both '06, are spending the summer researching the geoarchaeology of Smith Creek Cave in Nevada. Schaaf and Vicari, who are working with Professor of Archaeology Tom Jones, spent the first six weeks of their research on-site in Nevada, and are now back on campus analyzing samples in the lab.

Justin Monroe and Reagan Sayles, both '07, are working with Associate Professor of Biology Herman Lehman doing summer research. Monroe, a neuroscience major, and Sayles, a biology major, are working on a project titled "Biogenic amines and pigmentation patterns in paper wasp aggression." Their goal is to find a chemical reason why paper wasps with a certain spot pattern are more aggressive.

Winslow Professor of Chemistry George Shields was the principal investigator and Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Karl Kirschner and System Administrator and Research Support Specialist Steve Young were key personnel, on a $100,000 grant funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The grant, titled “Acquisition of a linux cluster for the Molecular Education and Research Consortium in Undergraduate Computational Chemistry (MERCURY)," has been funded by the NSF’s Division of Chemistry through the Major Research Instrumentation Program (MRI). The research efforts of the entire consortium of eight liberal arts colleges were essential for the success of the NSF-MRI grant. The Linux Cluster will be built, maintained, and operated at Hamilton, and all MERCURY members will use it for computational research in atmospheric chemistry, materials science and physical chemistry, and biochemistry.

Assistant Professor of Economics Stephen Wu’s study “Where do faculty receive their Ph.Ds?” was reported in Inside Higher Education (8/5/05). The study, originally published in Academe, the magazine of the American Association of University Professors, compares the doctoral origins of faculty in six subjects (economics, history, English, sociology, chemistry and mathematics) at top research universities and liberal arts colleges. The article reports that Wu found more than two-thirds of economics faculty members at top research universities earned their Ph.D at a graduate program at a top 10 institution, the highest proportion by far of the six disciplines compared. Wu is quoted as saying, “In economics, it’s fairly well known that if you want to be a professor, you pretty much want to get into a top program, or you might as well not really bother.” He guessed that it might be easier to evaluate potential economics professors based on where they got their Ph.D. as opposed to other subjects because those with a natural aptitude for math will succeed. “In other fields, there might be more room for development, for late bloomers,” he said.

William Hoffman ’07 of Baltimore, Md., is working on a summer research project with Associate Professor of Geosciences David Bailey titled “Chemical characterization of chert  source material in the Great Basin of Central Nevada.”  (Chert is a very hard sedimentary rock). Hoffman spent two weeks in the Great Basin collecting samples and is now on campus preparing the samples for geochemical analysis. 

Construction of the new Science Center, which will be dedicated on Sept. 30, is in its final days. Planning began in 1996 for the state-of-the-art, $56 million center. Close to 100 Barr and Barr construction workers are putting in overtime in order to meet the deadline for completion of Phase 2 of the new building, thus marking the completion of all Science Center construction.

Speaking with this year's participants in the STEP/Dreyfus program about their work, one would never guess that only five weeks ago none of them had had any college-level research experience. In fact, they had no experience with college life at all—these 10 students are members of the Hamilton class of 2009 and will matriculate as Hamilton students in the fall. The STEP/Dreyfus program provides funding for about 10 first-year students to spend five weeks in their pre-freshman summer working directly with Hamilton faculty doing summer research in biochemistry, chemistry, chemical physics, neuroscience and physics. The Hamilton program is one of only a handful of programs across the nation that allow pre-freshmen to engage in science research before formally matriculating in the institution.