As part of Alumni Weekend, President Joan Hinde Stewart delivered the "State of the College" Address to a capacity crowd in the Chapel. She discussed curricular changes, public speaking, the incoming class of 2008, study abroad and the college endowment. She praised alumni for their dedication to the college, noting that Hamilton ranks sixth nationally in terms of college involvement. "Hamilton alumni are the most engaged, passionate and committed alumni group I've ever seen. When you leave the Hill, you don't leave the Hill," she said.
Stewart lauded Hamilton's writing programs, praising faculty and the Writing Center. "We have on the Hill a culture of writing," she said, noting that the U.S. News lists only 11 universities and two colleges, including Hamilton, for their writing programs.
She also extolled research and student/faculty collaboration on the Hill, pointing to the recent discovery of an underwater volcano in Antarctica by an expedition led by Hamilton Professor of Geology Eugene Domack and including three Hamilton undergraduates.
"Although quite often there is a great distance between rhetoric and reality," Stewart observed, "Hamilton is what it claims it is and does what it says it does. At Hamilton research and pedagogy are part of the same thing," she noted, pointing to Professor of Chemistry Goerge Shield's approach to student/faculty collaboration as Hamilton's model. On his Web page, Shields claims, "My research is focused upon work that involves undergraduates in meaningful projects." "What's happening in the laboratory is happening in the classroom," Stewart said.
Stewart pointed to two areas in which Hamilton can improve. "Hamilton needs to diversify geographically," she said, noting that 76 percent of the incoming students for the class of 2008 are from five states, N.Y., N.J., Pa., N.H. and Conn. She also noted that even though Hamilton's large endowment is one of its many assets, it is only half that available to many peer institutions.
--by Linwood Rumney '04
