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Spring 2001 // Volume 15, Number 3 // Northampton, Massachusetts

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"And the Winner Is..."

When Play Is Work, and Vice Versa

Calling All Songwriters

"Recipes from Home" Tested on Unsuspecting Judges

In Case You Haven't Been Watching TV Lately...

Summits, shows, tuition and trips

Susan Bourque, Esther Booth Wiley Professor of Government, has been appointed provost and dean of the faculty. Since joining the college in 1970, Bourque has been active on several policy committees, including admissions, financial aid, and tenure and promotion; directed the Smith Research Project on Women and Social Change; and chaired the government department. She is the author and editor of several books. Bourque begins her term on June 1, succeeding John Connolly, who will become acting president when Ruth Simmons becomes the president of Brown University in July.
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Smith seniors are excited that Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of seven critically acclaimed novels, will be the speaker at Smith's 123rd Commencement on May 20. Morrison has also received the National Book Critics Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Humanities Medal, and the Library of Congress Bicentennial Living Legend Award. She was honored with a degree from Smith in 1991. She is currently the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University.
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In April, Ford Motor Co. pledged $10 million to Smith to underwrite a new state-of-the-art facility for the college's Picker Program in Engineering and Technology, established in 1999. "Ford has made this commitment to Smith as a model for bringing women and minorities into the engineering field and into the workforce," said Jacques Nasser, Ford's chief executive and president, in a press release.
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Due to the winter that wouldn't leave, the 2001 Bulb Show at the Botanic Gardens was the most appreciated of all the shows in the past 10 years, with more than 5,000 blooming crocuses, hyacinths, narcissi, irises, lilies and tulips on display. This was the last show until the $5 million Lyman Conservatory renovation project is completed in 2003. The renovations will restore the facility's greenhouses, expand its exhibition space and update the technology necessary for maintaining its vast collection of plants from habitats around the world. All Botanic Garden offices will remain open throughout the construction.
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"Have fun and raise hell" was the advice given to Smith students by Smith Medal Winner Molly Ivins '66 as she spoke to a capacity crowd gathered in John M. Greene Hall for Rally Day. Ivins, a political commentator and journalist, perhaps most widely known as the author of Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush, was the keynote speaker for Smith's 125th Rally Day celebration. She urged students to become active in political issues. "This country is ours. We run it. We are the board of directors," she said. Also honored with Rally Day Smith medals were Pamela Bowes Davis '68, Ann Kaplan '67 and Judith Tick '64.
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In February, Gloria Steinem '56, a longtime activist in promoting equity for women in the workplace, and Domenico Grasso, Rosemary Bradford Hewlett '40 Professor and chair of the Picker Program in Engineering and Technology at Smith, paid a visit to the Bronx High School of Science. There they met with some 50 sophomore and junior girls interested in science and technology. Recognizing the shortage of women professionals in the engineering and high-tech fields, Steinem and Grasso hope to encourage high school girls to consider careers in those fields.
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One month later, Smith hosted an intensive summit on engineering education that drew some 150 engineering executives, corporate representatives, deans, faculty members and association representatives to campus to formulate potential solutions to the national workforce shortage of women as practicing engineers and computer scientists. Among the notable speakers were Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; astronaut Bonnie Dunbar, assistant director for university research and affairs at NASA; and Thomas Magnanti, dean of engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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At its February meeting, Smith's Board of Trustees approved a 4.9 percent comprehensive fee increase for the 2001­2002 school year. The fee incorporates tuition at $24,550 and room and board, $8,560. The student activity fee, approved by the Student Government Association Senate, will be $192.
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With the help of the Smith math department, alumnae mathematicians organized an April conference celebrating their field. The conference, which was held on campus, drew an eclectic mix of participants, including undergraduate and graduate students, mathematicians, computer scientists, engineers, astronomers and physicists. Speakers represented four decades of Smith math classes, among them renowned math educator Evelyn Boyd Granville '45, who gave the opening talk. The conference was held in memory of Ellen Borie '66 and Laura Mayer '79.
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March 8 marked not only the celebration of International Women's Day, but also the opening of the inaugural conference for a new women's studies journal, Meridians: Feminism, Race, and Transnationalism. A Smith-Wesleyan collaboration, Meridians is the first peer-reviewed, scholarly journal related to women of color. The conference, held on campus, featured activists Angela Y. Davis, Elizabeth (Betita) Martinez and Sharon Hom; spoken-word performer Queen Godis; a presentation by former Salvadoran guerilla Maria Ofelia Navarrete; and performances by poets, musicians and writers. The second issue of Meridians, featuring writer Edwidge Danticat, poet Adriene Su, and essayist Paula Giddings, is currently available. Further information can be found at www.smith.edu/meridians.
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From July 21 to August 20, it will be full steam ahead for an unusual Smith College expedition-The 1899 Harriman Expedition Retraced: A Century of Change-along 9,000 miles of Alaska's coastline. A team of nationally respected scientists, artists and naturalists will be on board the M/V clipper Odyssey, a 120-passenger expedition vessel, along with Smith alumnae, faculty, students and members of the Alaskan community. The trip retraces a journey made in 1899 by railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman and his guests as they explored the coast, following the Inside Passage along the Alaska Peninsula across the Arctic Circle to the Bering Strait and Russia. The expedition will produce an in-depth survey of the contemporary Alaskan landscape. Final results will be captured in a two-hour PBS documentary feature film, produced by Florentine Films/Hott Productions, and a Web site. For more information, go to www.pbs.org/harriman.
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The Smith College Museum of Art is pleased with a new acquisition: One Who Watches, a painting by American artist Emma Amos. Acquired with a $6,000 gift from the Black Students Alliance (BSA), the painting was chosen by museum curators in partnership with members of the BSA executive board and Mentha Hynes, dean of multicultural affairs. Amos is the recipient of numerous fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. One Who Watches, now a part of the museum's permanent collection, will be available for viewing when the renovated and expanded museum reopens in 2002.

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of College Relations, Garrison Hall, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts 01063. Last update: 5/9/2001.


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