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Author and former TIME journalist Barrett Seaman ’67 returned to Hamilton on Nov. 9 to discuss the role of journalism in modern society and the tendency of people today to cluster with other like-minded individuals. With the rise of accessible technology, this clustering has the consequence of making moderate and unbiased news a less valuable commodity. Seaman was the third guest in the SpecSpeak  journalism series.

Nan Aron, the president of Alliance for Justice, spoke at Hamilton on Nov. 4 about the cases on the Supreme Court’s docket this upcoming term as well as close-minded opinions about how the Supreme Court should function. In Aron’s opinion, the four most important cases this term involve unions, abortion, voting rights and affirmative action, all of which are more “hot button” issues than the court faced last term.

Daniel Connolly ’85, P’18, a managing partner of Bracewell & Giuliani, was a trial and appellate attorney during Rudolph Giuliani’s mayoral administration (1993-2001). During his administration, Giuliani had exceptional goals to transform the character of New York City. In his Hamilton lecture on Oct. 22 Connolly spoke about three major Giuliani projects: merging police departments within the city, increasing property values through zoning laws, and eradicating consent decrees.

Kevin Quashie, a professor of Africana studies at Smith College, discussed issues of the idea of blackness and social perceptions of that identity  in a Hamilton lecture on Oct. 13, and ultimately concluded that the idea of blackness is rooted in social and historical prejudices, especially those relating to resistance and belligerency.

David Solomon ’84, co-head of Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs, returned to Hamilton on Oct. 2 and spoke with students on the role finance plays in the world. Solomon, who majored in government at Hamilton, described how finance had always fascinated and intrigued him because it “helps [him] put in perspective how the world is changing, and how all of those changes affect all of us and what we do.” 

Dmitry Suslov, deputy director for research at the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, visited Hamilton for  a lecture on Oct. 1 and told his audience that until recently, relations between the United States and Russia had been ambiguous—a “transition period” where the U.S and Russia were “neither friends nor foes.”

Social media was abuzz this summer when Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew announced that Alexander Hamilton’s spot on the $10 bill would be given to a woman. While most agree that women, and other underrepresented groups, should be prominent on our currency, there is a major disagreement on how to make that happen.  Two Hamilton faculty members are among many Hamiltonians who have spoken publicly and for the media on the topic.

Hamilton College competed in the 30th annual Mock Trial National Championship Tournament (NCT) in Cincinnati on April 16 - 19. The team took 32nd in the tournament, placing them in the top five percent of about 660 teams nationwide. While in the past, teams polished cases that they had been preparing for several months, this year teams were given an entirely new case, and only three weeks to prepare it.

Hamilton’s Mock Trial team has had a successful competitive year, but it’s not over yet. The team came in 3rd place last weekend (March 6-8) at the Opening Round Championship (ORCs) at Pennsylvania State University, granting them a bid to the national competition in Cincinnati (April 17-19). Of the eight total ORCs tournaments in the country, Penn State’s is known to be one of the most competitive, hosting teams such as Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Columbia and Tufts, all of which frequently compete at the national level.

Twenty years ago in Jacksonville, Ala., Lilly Ledbetter was an ordinary woman who suffered an injustice that women around the world face every day. In a lecture at Hamilton on March 2 Ledbetter recounted how her goals in life were simply to save and create a nest egg for retirement and for her children. Now, she is a noted advocate for equal pay for equal work and has commandeered significant changes in legislation regarding pay discrimination on the basis of sex, including the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act that was passed in 2009.