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Hamilton College is participating in the International Polar Year (IPY) via Larsen Ice Shelf System – Antarctica (LARISSA), a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded and Hamilton College supported initiative. The program has been launched and has established a Web presence. LARISSA brings an international, interdisciplinary team together to address a significant regional problem with global change implications.

Five members of the Hamilton faculty were recognized for their research and creative successes through a new series of awards presented at the 2008 Class & Charter Day on May 9. The Dean’s Scholarly Achievement Awards were instituted in three categories this year by Dean of Faculty Joe Urgo. Derek Jones, the Irma M. and Robert D. Morris Professor of Economics, received the Career Achievement Award; Associate Professor of Mathematics Debra Boutin was awarded Early Career Achievement; and Assistant Professor of Sociology Stephen Ellingson, Associate Professor of English Naomi Guttman and Associate Professor of History Lisa Trivedi all received the Notable Year Achievement awards.

Academic achievement prizes, prize scholarships and other recognition of student accomplishments were awarded at Hamilton's 58th annual Class & Charter Day convocation on Friday, May 9, in the Chapel. Among the top prizes, Casey Green '09 won the Milton F. Fillius Jr./Joseph Drown Prize Scholarship and Marco Allodi '08 was awarded the James Soper Merrill Prize.

Hamilton College's highest awards for teaching were presented on May 9 to five faculty members. Professor of Biology Ernest Williams Jr. received the Christian A. Johnson Professorship; Associate Professor of Physics Brian Collett was awarded the Samuel & Helen Lang Prize for Excellence in Teaching; Associate Professor of English Catherine Gunther Kodat received the Class of 1963 Excellence in Teaching Award; Assistant Professor of Anthropology Haeng-Ja Chung was honored with the John R. Hatch Excellence in Teaching Award; and Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Mark Oakes received the Sidney Wertimer Award.

The drawing, painting, photography and printmaking of 14 locally based artists including Visiting Instructor of Art Sylvia de Swaan will be featured in an exhibition titled "Open Focus" at the Kirkland Art Center in Clinton. The opening reception will be held on Sunday, May 11, from 3 to 5 p.m. The exhibition runs through June 4. Other artists in the exhibition include several Pratt at Munson-Williams-Proctor professors.

Nathan Goodale, visiting instructor in anthropology, published a chapter in Recent Advances in Paleodemography: Data, Techniques, Patterns, edited by Jean Pierre Bocquet-Appel. The chapter, titled "The Demography of Prehistoric Fishing/Hunting People: A Case Study of the Upper Columbia Area," considers the role of demography and the evolution of socioeconomic systems among hunter-gatherers. The volume stemmed from a session at the international conference the 25th World Population Congress, July 2005 in Tours, France. This publication represents the third related to Goodale's M.A. thesis research.

In an adventure that would make your average weekend warrior look rather feeble, this year's HamTrek competitors will once again be swimming 525 yards, biking nine miles and running 3.1 miles around the campus and in the village of Clinton. The event will begin in Hamilton College's Bristol Pool at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, May 9.

Dean of Faculty Joseph Urgo's essay, "Gorham Munson Falls Out with Cather: A Letter" was published in Willa Cather: New Facts, New Glimpses, Revisions, eds. John J. Murphy and Merrill Maguire Skaggs (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson Press). The essay is based on a letter discovered by Urgo in a Drew University archive. Through a close reading of the 1934 letter from Cather to critic Gorham Munson, probably never mailed, Urgo reconstructs a previously undocumented aspect of Cather's relationship with her contemporaries.

Professor of English Vincent Odamtten presented a paper, "The Perils of Recovering Identities In 'Appier/Appiah Times" at the 34th Annual African Literature Association Conference held at the Macomb and Western Illinois University, April 22-27.

Associate Professor of Art History Stephen J. Goldberg published a paper titled "Art and the Authority of Excellence in Traditional China" in La question de l'art en Asie orientale, a publication of Le Centre de Recherche sur l'Extrême Orient de Paris-Sorbonne (CREOPS). Goldberg examined the relevance of the classical tradition of Confucian reflection for the aesthetic reception and historical understanding of the art of the scholar-painter in China.