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Hamilton’s Levitt Leadership Institute (LLI) students spent their first week of spring break discovering how to be passionate, flexible and persistent in Washington, D.C. As organizers and participants in sessions with both governmental and non-profit organization leaders, they had the opportunity to demonstrate their newly acquired leadership skills.

Tsion Tesfaye ’16 has been selected to present her Commitment to Action project “Youth for Ethiopia” in a skills building session at the 2016 Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) meeting that will be held April 1-3 at the University of California, Berkeley.

 Among the Levitt Center’s programs aimed at connecting Hamilton students with the Utica community are Project SHINE and VITA. SHINE (Students Helping in the Naturalization of Elders) is a service learning program in which Hamilton students tutor refugees and immigrants learning English. VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) offers free tax help to families who cannot prepare their own tax returns. Hamilton students become certified volunteer tax preparers through the IRS.

Sharif Shrestha ’17 is one of five students who will be recognized at the opening plenary session of the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U), April 1 through 3, at the University of California, Berkeley.

In introducing guest speaker Dorceta Taylor, Associate Professor of Government Peter Cannavo referred to her as someone who “utterly changed my thinking on the environmental movement.” Taylor, environmental sociologist at the University of Michigan, was on campus March 3 to give a lecture titled “Food Insecurity, Resistance, and the Quest for Environmental Justice in Communities of Color.”

James Jacobs, a New York University School of Law professor, gave his first of four lectures about gun control at Hamilton on Feb. 24. These lectures, sponsored by the Levitt Center and the Dean of Faculty’s Office, serve to inaugurate the Levitt Center’s ongoing series of lectures on Justice and Security. This lecture focused on the question about what problems gun control can solve. 

Former U.S. Ambassador Prudence Bushnell led a workshop focused on helping women discover their leadership skills and learn strategies on how to be heard on Feb. 20. Sponsored by the Dean of Faculty's Office, this was an opportunity for female students, faculty members, and community partners to learn from Bushnell's rich experiences as a diplomat, leader and educator.

James Jacobs, the Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Professor of Constitutional Law and the Courts and director of the Center for Research in Crime and Justice at the New York University School of Law, will present a series of lectures on the topic “Dissecting Gun Control” from Feb. 24 through March 1.

The Levitt Center's Public Health Program will present a three-part series of lectures on the topic “Examining Health Care and Hospitals in Utica.” The Levitt series is in conjunction with Professor of Biology Herm Lehman’s Introduction to Public Health course in which students are given a specific issue or problem and spend the semester conducting research on it. This semester's topic is "Do we need to build a new hospital in Utica?"  The series begins on Tuesday, Feb. 23, with Scott Perra, president and CEO of Mohawk Valley Health System, discussing “The Future of Utica, NY, Hospitals.” His talk will begin at 10:30 a.m. in the Events Barn.

Narrative4 (N4), a nonprofit founded by author Colum McCann, returned to Hamilton on Feb. 11 to create a partnership between the organization and the College. More than 20 students, faculty members, Levitt Center administrators discussed how to take N4’s mission — fostering empathy through profound “story exchange exercises” — and affect deep-rooted change to campus culture.