Sustainability News

Two summers ago, Environmental Health and Safety Specialist Sara Soika and Director of Environmental Protection, Safety & Sustainability Brian Hansen had the pleasure of mentoring a handful of students — the summer sustainability interns — who quite literally changed the landscape on College Hill.

Ellie Sangree ’24 and Jesse Wexler ’24 have teamed up and combined their respective science and business acumen to revolutionize the future of clean water.

Midway through the second semester, Hamilton students continue to excel in the classroom, in academic competitions, and as student-athletes.

Among the many people and departments on campus working tirelessly to help Hamilton achieve its carbon neutrality goal by 2030, there’s a group of students doing the work right alongside them: the Hamilton Sustainability Coordinators.

Step inside a totally renovated and modernized Root Hall, complete with accessible and sustainable spaces where students and faculty can study, teach, and collaborate.

Professor and author Robin Wall Kimmerer offered students, faculty, and community members gathered in the Chapel a profound testimony regarding the decolonization of the environmentalist movement. The author of the national bestseller Braiding Sweetgrass came to College Hill to deliver this year’s Plant Lecture.

If you walked around campus on a nice day this summer, you would likely have seen a pair of Hamilton students hammering metal tags onto trees. You might well have seen them doing it over, and over, and over again.

Some 159 students were honored with academic prizes and scholarships, and faculty were recognized for receiving teaching awards and dean’s scholarly achievement prizes, at Hamilton’s annual Class & Charter Day convocation on May 9. Earning special recognition were Ryan Smolarsky ’23, who received the James Soper Merrill Prize, and Eleanor “Ellie” Sangree ’24, who was awarded the Fillius Drown Scholarship.

Hamilton College has unveiled an ambitious approach to reducing the institution’s impact on climate change by integrating a culture of environmental responsibility into every aspect of campus life.

The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship offers participants the chance to explore their “absolute passion.” This mission appealed to Salwa Sidahmed ’23. After graduation, Sidahmed will visit five different countries to follow her passion: plant-based practices and sustainability.