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There were bright smiles, even if there wasn’t any bright sunshine, greeting the newest members of the �Ա���Ƶ community today as first-year students moved into their residence halls.

As part of its aggressive push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and advance sustainability, �Ա���Ƶ has signed a 15-year commitment with Patagonia Sur to purchase forestry-based carbon offsets. Under the agreement, a total of 225,000 native-species trees will be planted on 430 acres of land in Chile’s Aysén Region of Patagonia.

Five alumni who own a diverse set of businesses in central New York are profiled in the Summer ’11 �Ա���Ƶ Scene. Read about the entrepreneurial spirit of:

Summer in Hamilton tends to be more dormant than the academic year, but tucked away in laboratories and library corners, �Ա���Ƶ students have been making life-changing discoveries as they assist professors with their research. Here’s a glimpse into a few of those pockets of campus:

�Ա���Ƶ President Jeffrey Herbst is the co-author of an article on ForeignPolicy.com that explores the idea of “fault lines” within nations that can lead to mass violence. The article is titled “The Fault Lines of Failed States: Can social science determine what makes one state fail and another succeed?”

Maggie Dunne’ 13 was featured in a recent web article about her unflagging commitment to assisting children at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

While most people know that �Ա���Ƶ’s undergraduate population has become increasingly international, it may come as a surprise that so many young people, in their formative middle school and high school years, travel across oceans to come to campus.

As the debt-limit debate went into hyperdrive after news of a deal filtered out of the nation’s capital on Sunday night, �Ա���Ƶ economics professor Thomas Michl urged political leaders to tone down the demagoguery and focus on the real issue at hand: creating jobs.