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The inaugural lecture of the new Days-Massolo Cultural Education Center will take place on Thursday, Jan. 27, at 4 p.m., in the Kirner-Johnson Bradford Auditorium. The presentation, titled “Diversity in the Liberal Arts College: Institutional Dimensions and Uses,” will feature two speakers: Eric Estes, dean of Multicultural Affairs at Oberlin College and Hamilton College Professor of Anthropology Bonnie Urciuoli.

In the sense that every person has a responsibility and an obligation to contribute toward the safety of community, said Drexel University's Dr. John Rich, we are all involved in public health. Dr. Rich has worked to expose the post-traumatic hardships faced by young black men who have fallen victim to violence in their communities. On Jan. 20, Dr. Rich presented a lecture, “Hearing, Humanizing and Healing: Practicing Nonviolence in Public Health,” as part of Hamilton’s Martin Luther King, Jr. commemorative events.

Internships, whether paid or unpaid, are often the ideal option for Hamilton students seeking to gain experience in professional fields over the summer months. Hamilton’s Scott Regan ’11 was fortunate enough to find, through HamNet, a summer internship in a field that interests him. Regan will spend this summer as an intern in the offices of Merrimack Valley Legal Services, a law office based in Massachusetts.

The Frosted Elfin is not much to look at. It is a small, brownish butterfly whose unspectacular markings help it blend in against the backdrop of bark and dead leaves and grasses in its natural habitat in the Rome Sand Plains. The elfin, however, is an essential part of a fragile ecosystem and its numbers, recently, are decreasing. Five Hamilton students—Dan Bruzzese ’12, Eddie Williams ’12, Jonathan Pinney ’11, Chloe Von Ancken ‘11 and Mary Lehner ’12—along with Associate Professor of Biology Bill Pfitsch, are spending the summer doing field work for a project called “Restoration Ecology of Common Blue Lupine in the Rome Sand Plains” to find out why the frosted elfin is disappearing and how to get it back.

The mission of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, a nonprofit corporation headed by folk artist and cultural icon Pete Seeger, is to protect the waters of the Hudson River from pollution and degradation. This summer, Emerson Fellow Jacob Sheetz-Willard ’12 is researching how Pete Seeger’s Clearwater movement transcends environmental activism and becomes a cultural movement similar in organization to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. 

Hamilton has no formal pre-law program, but that doesn’t stop a large number of graduates, many of whom have degrees in economics or government, from pursuing a law degree after Hamilton. With so many students choosing law school, some faculty members ask “How do we better prepare students with interests in becoming lawyers?” The possible solution? A new major that would draw on classes from multiple disciplines and would, hopefully, be attractive for students who anticipate a future in law.

As the sun shines and Hamilton’s campus heats up during the summer months, most summer researchers retreat to the air conditioning of Kirner-Johnson and the Science Center. Three hardworking students, however, elect to spend their summers outdoors, working eight hours per day on Hamilton’s community farm garden. The three summer farm managers, Andrew Pape ’11, Sarah Gamble ’13 and Christine Roback ’12, are all dedicated workers with a taste and a passion for locally-grown produce.

ArtCenter/South Florida (ACSF), located in Miami Beach, describes itself as “an access point for artists, curators, and visitors alike. ACSF is a major cultural institution that offers the community exhibitions for up-and-coming visual artists and educational programs in a wide variety of media for many different age groups and skill levels. This summer, Hamilton’s Sarah Perdomo ’12 will be joining the ArtCenter/South Florida team as a teaching assistant at one of the institution’s summer education programs.

Among the myriad problems facing Rwanda, population control is one of the most urgent. A 2000 Demographic and Health Survey found that only 4 percent of women in Rwanda were using contraception. This low percentage gives rise to several problems, including high infant and mother death rates. With his summer Levitt Fellowship research, Steve Mello ’11 is examining data from two demographic and health surveys to see whether an increase in contraception leads to healthier children.

Hamilton students have the choice of a wide variety of living situations. From dark side suites to spacious Carnegie and South quads to Griffin Road apartments, living options are as diverse as the student body. Of all the many housing options offered at Hamilton, probably the least known about is the Woollcott Cooperative (colloquially referred to as the co-op). In high demand among upperclassmen, the co-op option offers a unique Hamilton living and dining experience.