News

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.

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.

Claudia Rankine, award-winning poet and essayist, read from her nationally acclaimed book, Citizen: An American Lyric, in the Chapel on Feb.  8. This work is a collection of stories conveyed mainly as prose poems and mixed media images.  Rankine explained that she had asked her friends to tell her a story about a time “where you were doing something ordinary […] and suddenly somebody said something that reduced you to your race” in order to explore the “white supremacist foundations inside this culture.

Human rights activist John Dau, a former “Lost Boy of Sudan,” spoke on Feb. 3 about his life experiences and his successful career in the United States. The talk was presented by the Levitt Center Speaker Series.

Seven Hamilton students have been selected to attend the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) that will take place in April 1-3 at the University of California, Berkeley. Aleksandra Bogoevska ’17, Andy Chen ’16, Leonard Kilekwang ’16, Alexandru Hirsu ’17, Emily Moschowits ’16, Sharif Shrestha ’17 and Tsion Tesfaye ’16 will attend. Shrestha and Tesfaye were among four Hamilton students who participated in last year’s CGI U in Miami.

“I am convinced that individual human beings can make a difference.” The proclamation made by Prudence Bushnell, an American diplomat who served as U.S. Ambassador to Kenya and Guatemala, and the former Sol M. Linowitz Visiting Professor of International Relations at Hamilton, established the framework for the Hamilton students participating in the 5th annual Levitt Leadership Institute, Jan. 10-15.