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Spring 1999 // Volume 13, Number 3 // Northampton, Massachusetts

............................   Former NEA Chair to Speak at Commencement   Talk Can Be Really Cheap   Beyond Fun and Games: International Conference to be Held at Smith   Smith Claims a Second Rhodes Scholar   Scholars Gather to Discuss Midwifery

Closings, Renovations, Premieres, Conferences and Trustees Three new members will join the Smith College Board of Trustees on July 1. Cherilyn Cepriano '99 will serve a two-year term on the board. Now completing a year as president of the Student Government Association, she is a double major in anthropology and government focusing on health care policy. Cepriano's interests have led her to internships with the White House and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service. Currently she is involved in a senior public policy workshop on the regulation of health maintenance organizations. Originally from Brooklyn, she is one of the first in her family to attend college. Her younger sister, Jessica, will be a member of the class of 2003. Jane Lakes Harman '66 recently completed three terms as congresswoman from California's 36th District. While in Congress she served on the national security and intelligence committees and co-chaired a panel on sexual harassment and gender issues in the military. Harman received a J.D. from Harvard Law School and later was chief counsel and staff director of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, deputy secretary to the Cabinet in the Carter administration and special counsel to the Department of Defense. She practiced corporate law from 1979 to 1992. Harman retired from Congress to seek the office of governor of California. She will serve a five-year term on the board of trustees. Barbara Alden Taylor '65 is executive vice president of Edelman Public Relations Worldwide in New York. Previously she held senior positions at Voyager Expanded Learning, Benckiser Group & Coty Inc., Lancaster Group, Hill & Knowlton Inc., Porter/Novelli and Doremus & Co. She was chairman and CEO of Taylor and Hammond Ltd. from 1975 to 1984. Taylor serves on the boards of the Madison Square Boys and Girls Club, Up With People and the York Theater Group. She was a director of the Smith College Alumnae Association from 1993 to 1996. Taylor will serve a five-year term as alumna trustee on the board of trustees. ............................ New Century Theatre, Northampton's professional summer theater in residence each year at Smith College, has announced its 1999 season. It opens on June 24 in the Hallie Flanagan Studio Theatre with the regional premiere of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) by Adam Long, J.M. Winfield and Daniel Singer. Other productions scheduled are Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart, David Hare's Skylight and comedian Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile. This season's productions are in keeping with New Century's focus on producing new works and area premieres along with classic American dramas and comedies not seen recently in the area. For more information call (413) 587-3933 or e-mail New Century Theatre at NCtheatre@aol.com. ............................ "What's Next? American Pluralism and the Civic Culture: Challenges and Proposals," a major conference on racial and ethnic diversity, will be held at Smith November 4­6. Organized by Peter Rose, Sophia Smith Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, the conference is expected to draw prominent social and political scientists and anthropologists, among others. It will explore such topics as the diversity of the U.S. population at the end of the 20th century and the challenges posed by a pluralism that encompasses new immigrants as well as minorities that have been in the U.S. for many generations. Participants, including several Smith alumnae, will discuss ways of recognizing and reconciling differences among various populations and of building coalitions among them. In addition to daytime sessions on these topics, evening programs will include a presentation by playwright, performance journalist and social critic Anna Deavere Smith. The closing session of the conference, "Toward 'A More Perfect Union': Intitatives for Action," is expected to develop practical policies for addressing the dilemmas of diversity in communities, especially on college campuses. ............................ Two of Smith's smaller residential houses, Hopkins A and B, will be closed at the end of the school year and demolished in late May because of structural deficiencies. The house known as "Little Hop" will remain. By way of saying farewell to A and B, a group of Hopkins alums are organizing a Hopkinites Reunion to be held during the first reunion weekend this May. On Friday, May 14, the last Hopkins residents, those from the class of 1999, will host an official open house. On Saturday, May 15, Hopkins alumnae will march under the 1776 banner and carry signs honoring the house. For more information about the reunion and other Hopkins events, visit the house Web site at www. welcome.to/hopkinshouse. ............................ The Smith College Board of Trustees has approved a comprehensive fee of $30,442, an increase of 3.5 percent over the current year. The comprehensive fee incorporates tuition ($22,440), room and board ($7,820) and a student activities fee ($182). In a letter to parents and students announcing the new fees, President Ruth J. Simmons noted that the subsidy provided to every student by the college's endowment, annual fund and operating budget means that a student's comprehensive fee actually covers only 56 percent of the real cost of her education. ............................ Entering Neilson Library has become a more cultural and aesthetic experience thanks to recent renovations of the front corridor and Neilson Browsing Room. The same applies to the entrance of the Mortimer Rare Book Room on the library's third floor, where a glass and wood vestibule has been built around the doorway as a showcase for samples of the collection's holdings. In early April the library's renovated main foyer was dedicated as the Constance Morrow Morgan Gallery, a new space lined with display cases on either side. They feature exhibits of prized manuscripts, historical papers and photos, noted books and other materials from the Mortimer Rare Book Room. Morgan, a member of the class of 1935, former trustee and longtime library donor, was the daughter of one-time acting Smith president Elizabeth Cutter Morrow and the sister of alumna Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The dedication, made by President Ruth Simmons, coincided with the annual Friends of the Library meeting. "We want to better present the wealth of collections in the library," said Director of Libraries Sarah Pritchard about the renovations and the Morgan Gallery. "Now when you walk into the library the first thing you see is exhibits. The whole impression it creates is one of greater elegance and visual unity. It all looks like it fits together." The Browsing Room renovations include improved lighting, new paint and a different interior arrangement to encourage regular use, Pritchard said. ............................ For students who like to lounge over a latté, energize with an espresso or relax with a chai-flavored smoothie, Smith now has the hangout. It's Smith's new coffeehouse, Jittery's-"so good it's unnerving," says manager Patty Hentz. Operated on the first floor of Davis Center seven nights a week from 7 p.m. to midnight, Jittery's is meant to be a place for students to meet and relax, says Dean of the College Maureen Mahoney, who got the idea for it two years ago when the students' self-study revealed that they "wanted and needed a place to hang out." The coffeehouse is not just for students. Hentz is planning to keep Jittery's open during the commencement and reunion weekends for the benefit of visiting alumnae. "We'd be a great place to come and have a cup of latté after a reunion gathering," she notes. It features a lounge area with dimmed lighting, comfortable couches, computers with Internet access and hook-ups for laptops. Its eclectic assortment of nonalcoholic beverages includes such current college favorites as Tazo teas and coffees from Seattle's Best Coffee, one of the country's top coffee companies. ............................ Stephanie Coontz, the historian of family life whose groundbreaking research has placed her at the center of the family-values debate in American politics, came to Smith in April and spoke as a visiting scholar on the changing social and family environments of childhood. The Louis B. and Edmund J. Kahn Liberal Arts Institute sponsored her visit as part of its 1998­99 Exploring Ecologies of Childhood project. Coontz discussed the myths and realities about the history of parenting, demonstrating the cross-cultural diversity of childbearing arrangements, and she challenged stereotypes about the nature of childhood and adolescence. She first gained national attention in 1992 with the publication of her book The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. In 1997, Coontz published The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America's Changing Families. Throughout the academic year, 11 Smith undergraduates have been actively involved as student fellows in this Kahn Institute project. The students-whose majors run the gamut from art history and biology to philosophy-have participated in weekly colloquium meetings with visiting scholars and by the end of this term will have presented their projects at luncheon meetings of faculty and student Kahn fellows and in poster sessions in campus houses. Several of the fellows were planning to attend Smith alumnae club meetings in April with Kahn faculty fellows to present their projects.

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Copyright © 1999, Smith College. Portions of this publication may be reproduced with the permission of the Office
of College Relations, Garrison Hall, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts 01063. Last update: 4/26/99.

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