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Each summer, Opportunity Programs welcomes to campus a new cohort of incoming students for an intensive academic college transition program. The five-week program, directed by Phyllis Breland (HEOP) '80, introduces students to Hamilton’s academic rigor and assists them in building a personalized foundation for success, including an opportunity to fulfill College graduation requirements in quantitative and symbolic reasoning and in physical education.

Sacharja Cunningham ’19 found himself pondering how he could address social justice issues in the education system. From there, he took a step: He devised a summer research project, “Mind. Body. I Am Somebody.”

On June 25, 43 members of the Opportunity Programs class of 2021 arrived on campus for the Summer Program. The five-week summer program, directed by Phyllis Breland (HEOP) '80, introduces students to Hamilton’s academic rigor and assists them in building a personalized foundation for success, including an opportunity to fulfill College graduation requirements in quantitative and symbolic reasoning and in physical education.

Three Hamilton students were among some 200 participants who gathered at Williams College for the 2017 Creating Change Consortium (C3 Summit). The C3 Summit, hosted by a different Liberal Arts Diversity Officers (LADO) college each year, brings together underrepresented students from LADO institutions and pre- or post-doctoral candidates from research universities. This year’s theme was The Transformative Power of Race in the Academy: Measuring Change, Charting Futures, where participants discussed the priority of diversity and inclusion in the academy.

Juniors Andre Burnham and Derian De La Torre have been awarded Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships for study abroad this summer. Burnham will attend the Babilonia Language School in Sicily and De La Torre will study in Hamilton’s Associated Colleges in China program in Beijing.

Opportunity Programs hosted its 11th annual Parents’ Connected Day on April 8. A highlight of the event was presentation of the Through the Doors of Opportunity award to Josie Collier ’97, P’14, which recognizes alumni who choose to give back to their communities, not only in word, but in deed.

Adrian Summers ’19 has been named a 2017 Newman Civic Fellow by Campus Compact, a Boston-based non-profit organization working to advance the public purposes of higher education.

Students and staff from Opportunity Programs at Hamilton, Cazenovia College and MVCC headed to Albany for the New York State Student Aid Alliance Advocacy Day on Feb. 14.

Minority Access, an organization committed to improving access in education, employment and research, recognized Hamilton as a National Diversity Institution at the 17th National Role Models Conference. Director of Opportunity Programs and Interim Director of Diversity and Inclusion Phyllis Breland, who nominated the College, accepted the award on Oct. 1 at the Washington, D.C., event.

Having arrived on campus on June 26, members of the Opportunity Program were among the first of the Class of 2020 to meet the college’s new president. David Wippman, who arrived on campus almost simultaneously with the students, joined the group of 39 for a photo followed by lunch on July 5.