News

When Audrey Alix ’25 sits down at her desk in Utica’s City Hall, she’s greeted by the familiar sight of her class binder from Hamilton’s GIS for Geoscientists course. Occasionally, she will thumb through its pages, searching for techniques she learned on the Hill. On her computer, Alix keeps data that she created during an Emerson Grant project mapping the parks and trees of Utica. Every day, she is reminded of the work she put in to get to her current position as a city planner in Utica, N.Y.

With construction progressing steadily toward a January 2027 opening, Hamilton College has announced the name of its newest building: The Nye Center for Innovation and Technology. The name of the 41,000-square-foot facility celebrates its ties to a branch of the Burke and Harding families which has provided unwavering support to the College for six generations spanning more than a century.

National and regional news organizations regularly interview Hamilton faculty, staff, alumni, and students for their expertise and perspectives on current events, and to feature programs and activities on campus. March’s news topics included coverage of the lunar eclipse, the war with Iran, and alumni creative endeavors, among others.

Travis Talmadge ’09 has a hot idea — bringing sauna and bathhouse culture, which has long existed in Scandinavia and Japan, to America. He co-founded Bathhouse, “a home for people to look, feel, and perform their very best.”

Chef and chocolatier Stephen Durfee, director of curriculum at Dandelion Chocolate in San Francisco, and a 1985 graduate of Hamilton College, will deliver Hamilton’s 2026 Commencement address and receive an honorary degree on Sunday, May 24, at 10:30 a.m., in the Margaret Bundy Scott Field House. A class of 518 students is expected to receive bachelor’s degrees during the Commencement ceremony.

Victor Maldonado ’86 has no plans to retire from practicing immigration law anytime soon. In fact, he’s pushing himself harder than ever. Last summer, Maldonado swam the English Channel, a course considered the “Mt. Everest of Open Water Swimming” — and he’s not stopping there.

To get a better sense of the work of Career Community alumni volunteers, Hamilton Magazine recently asked a few of them to share their insights on what it’s been like working with today’s students, what it takes to be successful in today’s workplace, and what students can do to best prepare for their futures. Here’s a snapshot of that conversation, edited for length.

Hank Morgan ’25 has taken his all-American college basketball skills to the G League. The 6’5” forward is currently playing with the Maine Celtics, an affiliate of the Boston Celtics.

As a research hydrogeologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, Michelle Walvoord ’93 is forging new frontiers in studying the impact of changes and instability on groundwater.

Omar Reid ’80 gets around. As a school psychologist and president of the Black Mental Health Alliance of Massachusetts, he has visited schools across the state and worked with children for 40 years.