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Reading is an essential skill that most experts agree is developed at a very early stage in a child’s education. Yet not all students acquire this vital skill at the same rate, and many need extra help to become fluid readers. To aid some of these students, Hamilton recently began a new community outreach program at Kernan Elementary School in Utica to help second-graders  improve their reading abilities.

One hundred Hamilton students are spending a week of their spring break volunteering at nonprofit organizations during Spring Break, March 12-26. This year marks Hamilton's 18th Alternative Spring Break (ASB), an annual volunteer venture that consists of 10 different community service trips.

Levitt Center Director and Henry Platt Bristol Professor of Economics Ann Owen was interviewed for an American Public Media Marketplace Morning Report segment titled “What’s Next for the Federal Reserve” on March 16. Owen spoke with MarketPlace immediately following the Federal Reserve’s announcement that there would be no change in interest rates.

Students who traveled to Wilmington, N.C., for Alternative Spring Break last week gathered at the home of Executive Director of Principal Gifts Mary Evans '82 for a dinner party. They were also joined by Missy '79 and Andy '70 Kennedy, and Durwood '67 and Gloria Almkuist. The students volunteered at an elementary school and at two teen drop in programs in Wilmington.

Professor of Government David Paris '71 published an essay on the newly released book Academically Adrift on the blog Faculty Focus on March 14. Paris wrote in Holding Up a Mirror to Higher Education, “…no one has any particular incentive to put student learning front and center. … students prioritize obtaining credentials over learning and social life over academics, faculty view scholarship—as opposed to (rigorous) teaching—as a source of rewards and advancement, and institutions have no incentive to compete with regard to learning outcomes as opposed to status and amenities.”

The Days-Massolo Center hosted a discussion titled “American Muslims and the Crisis of Islam” with Yale American studies and religious studies professor Zareena Grewal on March 3.   As a historical anthropologist Grewal focuses her research on Islam in the U.S.  

The second annual Milton Marathon drew avid Paradise Lost fans, members of English classes, faculty and interested bystanders to the browsing area of Burke Library on Feb. 27. Margie Thickstun, the Elizabeth J. McCormack Professor of English, organized the marathon for her English 228 class.

Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies Brent Plate wrote a review of Peter Greenaway’s “Leonardo’s Last Supper: A Vision by Peter Greenaway” for the March 22 issue of Arts and Christianity magazine. The massive multimedia installation, recently on display at the Central Park Armory, is part of Greenaway’s “Ten Classic Paintings Revisited,” an ongoing series in which he merges iconic works of art into a cinematic experience.

A collection of 300 audio interviews with jazz musicians, arrangers, writers and critics, the jazz greats and the supporting cast from the 1930s to the present, is now available online and free to the public courtesy of the Hamilton College Jazz Archive. Listeners can click on a link and read the transcripts or listen to interviews with some of jazz’s most well-known musicians, including Dave Brubeck, Lionel Hampton, Oscar Peterson and George Shearing as well as former members of bands led by Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton and the Dorsey Brothers.

Andrew Lee ’94, vice president, new businesses for Aetna, has been selected by the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, as a Young Global Leader for 2011.