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Professor Gary Wyckoff’s public policy students worked in teams this semester to meet the challenge of devising effective yet feasible policy proposals for education reform. They presented and defended their projects to a panel of alumni who work in education on May 12.

In a country as vast and multicultural as the United States, it’s difficult to pin down what exactly constitutes an American identity. Do self-indentifying “Americans” have specific traits that they all hold in common, and if not, what unites them under the red, white and blue flag? A panel of Hamilton community members discussed this complex question during the panel  “What Does It Mean to Be American?” presented by La Vanguardia.

Over the course of a lifetime, wage differences between men and women for the same work can amount to a loss of up to  $1-2 million per woman. Luckily, much of this wage gap can be closed if women negotiate for the salary that they deserve. On April 27, Hamilton College hosted its first WAGE Project workshop with coach Annie Houle.

When one thinks of religion, it is easy to imagine and conceptualize rituals, texts and principles. However, one might argue that the experience of religion is just as much about tastes, sights, sounds and textures as it is about following guidelines and observing tradition. Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate subscribes to the philosophy that religion is best understood through direct interaction rather than distanced study. He is helping students gain firsthand interactions with religion in Oneida County through his course “Religion in the U.S.”

While things, or objects, are physically tangible, they can also be an abstract gateway to looking at the world from a fresh perspective and liberating the mind from selfishness. Dr. Ian Bogost, award-winning author of Alien Phenomenology, delivered a lecture to the Hamilton community about the pressing importance of discovering substantive meaning in everyday objects to enrich our daily lives.

More than half of working-age African American men in the United States have a criminal record. This statistic does not include those who are currently in jail or prison, who have effectively lost their voice and their status as individuals of worth. On April 17, Michelle Alexander, associate professor of law at Ohio State University, presented a lecture on mass incarceration and her bestselling book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The visit was presented by The Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center, the Chief Diversity Officer and the Days-Massolo Center.

Listening to a short clip of Milt Hinton interview legendary jazz musician Teddy Wilson more than 30 years ago feels as though one is sitting in the room with them as they discuss stories from their lives and careers. This type of easy, free-flowing conversation characterizes many of the 120 interviews conducted over the course of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Jazz Oral History Project. Dan Morgenstern, who worked on the project for its entire life from 1972-1983, presented a lecture on April 8 about the intimate relationship between jazz history and oral tradition.

The flexibility of creating art and the limitless mediums at an artist’s disposal allow for bold originality and ingenuity. Multidisciplinary artist Chris Doyle takes full advantage of the vast range of possibility in art, and he shared his unique perspective with the Hamilton community as the college’s first speaker in the Artists in Conversation series.  Doyle’s video “Waste Generation” is on view at the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton.

When there is an emergency involving illness or injury on Hamilton’s campus, student EMTs can reach somebody in need within minutes. The team that forms Hamilton College Emergency Medical Services (HCEMS) consists of 21 students from a wide variety of backgrounds and interests. This week, Hamilton recognizes their efforts through the National Collegiate Emergency Services Foundation’s National Collegiate EMS Week.

According to author and University of Chicago professor Martha Nussbaum, many people in the U.S. and Europe would like to believe that religious intolerance is an issue that characterizes an earlier, darker era of civilization. However, closer examination reveals an uninformed and intolerant message behind a series of recent laws targeting Muslims around the world. On Nov. 2, Nussbaum lectured on intolerance toward and fear of Muslims, specifically regarding the burqa, a bulky outer garment worn by some Muslim women that covers the hair and face.