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Assistant Professor of Women's Studies Vivyan Adair, who is director of the ACCESS Project at Hamilton College, was a panelist at a higher education and welfare reform conference in New York City on Nov. 18. The conference, "Bridging the Gap: Higher Education and Career-Centered Welfare Reform," was sponsored by Metropolitan College of New York, Medgar Evans College (CUNY), National Urban League, National Black Caucus of State Legislators and the College Board. Adair participated in a panel, "Programs and Models That Work," where she described the ACCESS Project. ACCESS is a demonstration educational, social service and career program that assists profoundly low-income parents in Central New York in their efforts to move from welfare and low-wage work to meaningful and secure career employment through higher education. The program provides a fully supported introduction to a liberal arts education coupled with social services, family and career support.

A variety of classical music performances will take place this weekend, Nov. 22-24, in Wellin Hall. The String and Woodwind Chamber Ensembles and the Brass Ensemble will perform on Friday, Nov. 22, at 8 p.m. Music by P.D.Q. Bach, Haydn, Schubert and more. David Steadman '03 will conduct a choral program for his senior project in music Saturday, Nov. 23, at 8 p.m. A faculty recital featuring Sara Mastrangelo, violin, and Sar-Shalom Strong, piano, playing the music of Beethoven, Brahms and Fauré, will take place on Sunday, Nov. 24 at 3 p.m. All are free and open to the public.

Professor of French John O'Neal is the author of a new book, Changing Minds, The Shifting Perception of Culture in Eighteenth Century France, published by University of Delaware Press. According to the publisher's Web site, "In this study of the epistemological underpinnings of cultural changes in the French Enlightenment, O’Neal shows how many of the cultural changes brought about by eighteenth-century French thinkers arise from the different forms of knowledge and experiences they pursued. They derived these different forms of knowledge and experience from a new view of sensibility, which in turn depended on humans’ perceived proximity to or distance from nature and the categories normally associated with this concept."

Associate Professor of Sociology Mitchell Stevens appeared in a news segment about homeschooling that aired on Channel One News. Channel One News is a daily 12-minute newscast that is beamed via satellite to 12,000 U.S. middle schools and high schools. Stevens spoke on camera with news anchor Errol Barnet. Stevens is the author of Kingdom of Children: Culture and Controversy in the Homeschooling Movement (Princeton University Press, 2001).

James A. Bradfield, the Elias W. Leavenworth Professor of Economics, will present a lecture, "On Economic Consequences of a War with Iraq," on Monday Nov. 18, at 7:30 p.m., in the KJ Red Pit. The talk is sponsored by the Alpha Delta Phi Lecture Series. Free to all members of the Hamilton Community.

Associate Professor of Music and bassist Michael "Doc" Woods played in a jam session at New York City's famed Blue Note Jazz Club on November 8 and 9. Woods had attended a performance at the club, then joined an open jam session when the host group asked for a volunteer bass player.

Mitchell Stevens, Associate Professor of Sociology, will discuss "Community and Bureaucracy at Hamilton," as the next speaker in the Faculty Lecture Series, on Friday, Nov. 15, at 4:10 p.m., in the Red Pit at Kirner-Johnson. Stevens explains, "'Community'" is the wrong referent image for organizational life at Hamilton. The frequent invocation of "'community'" in organizational discourse abets rather than diminishes campus problems. The College is better understood as a bureaucracy," says Stevens. "Once relieved of its unsavory affective baggage, bureaucracy is a useful lens for assessing some of the College's chronic troubles and greatest strengths." The lecture is sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty. A reception will follow at Café Opus.

Philip Klinkner, the James S. Sherman Associate Professor of Government, has been invited to deliver the Swarthmore College annual Charles E. Gilbert Lecture on Thursday, Nov. 14. The Gilbert Lecture is sponsored by the Center for Social and Policy Studies and the Department of Political Science. Klinkner's topic is "Is the Old Racism Really Dead? An Analysis of Anti-Miscegenation Referenda in Alabama and South Carolina." Previous lecturers include Charles O. Jones of the University of Wisconsin and Theda Skocpol and Robert Putnam of Harvard University. All are past presidents of the American Political Science Association.

Hamilton College Professor of Africana Studies and French Tracy Sharpley-Whiting was interviewed for a Toronto Star article about racial profiling in popular movies.

Assistant Professor of English Gillian Gane has published an article titled "Unspeakable Injuries in Disgrace and David's Story" in a special double issue, "South Africa: Post-Apartheid," of Kunapipi: Journal of Post-Colonial Writing (Vol. XXIV, Nos. 1 & 2 [2002]: 101-13).