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Members of the Smith College community make
many contributions to the city of Northampton, both individually and collectively.
This fact sheet lists in some detail the nature and extent of the college’s
economic, political and civic participation in the life of our city.
The information below was updated in October
2007 (based on 2006-07 figures).
1,390. Approximately 41 percent live in Northampton,
Florence and Leeds.
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Annual payroll $108,655,485 |
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Annual payroll (excluding fringe
benefits) $80,187,831 |
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Estimated college expenditures
with local businesses $12,000,000 |
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Estimated expenditures by students
and visitors $3,700,000 |
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Construction during 2003-07 $94,464,901 |
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2006-07 real estate taxes paid
on rental properties $425,849 |
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2006-07 real estate taxes paid
on non-rental properties $50,425 |
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Smith is Northampton's largest
taxpayer. |
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United Way contributions by employees
in 2006-07 $140,408 |
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Smith is Northampton’s
largest institutional donor to United Way. Our coordinated campuswide campaign
is responsible for our significant contribution. |
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The trustees of Smith College offer tuition
assistance to the daughters of those who have been residents of Northampton or Hatfield
for at least five years on the condition that the students are of traditional age
and enrolled full time at Smith College. In 2006–07, the Trustee Grant was
set at 50 percent of tuition ($16,160 per student). Six students received assistance
in this program for awards totaling $80,800. Four students received the grant for
the entire year. Two students received the grant for one semester.
In 2006–07, financial aid to Massachusetts
residents totaled $8.7 million.
Since 1990, 959 area high school students
have taken 1,087 courses at Smith at no cost.
External grants to Smith faculty and administrators
from charitable foundations, federal and state agencies, and corporations support
research, teaching and outreach projects that create jobs, support local educational
partnerships (including many of the projects listed in this brochure) and have other
direct and indirect local economic impacts. In 2006–07, Smith faculty members
were awarded $4,957,846 in grants and fellowships. Annually, the college receives
more than $6 million from foundation, corporate and government sources for grant-funded
projects.
www.smith.edu/outreach
Smith’s Office of Educational Outreach develops partnerships and offers workshops
and programs throughout the academic year and summer that promote the sharing of
the college’s educational resources with schools and communities, both locally
and nationally. Throughout the school year, children and their teachers explore our
labs, gardens and galleries, and Smith students and faculty visit schools to share
their expertise and to learn. In the summer months students in kindergarten through
grade 12 and teachers take part in enrichment programs and professional development
workshops. The Office of Educational Outreach represents an annual investment of
$182,000 ($145,000 in Smith funds plus $37,000 in external grant support).
www.smith.edu/wfi/pop.htm
The Peer Outreach Program (POP), sponsored by the college’s Women and Financial
Independence program, takes Smith students into local middle and high schools to
teach workshops on personal finance topics such as budgeting, responsible credit
card use and student loans. Since 2002, Smith workshop leaders have taught more than
300 students at Northampton High School and Smith Vocational High School, as well
as at several high schools, middle schools and centers for teenagers in Amherst,
Granby, Greenfield, Holyoke and Springfield.
www.smith.edu/sccs
The Smith College Campus School serves children from kindergarten through grade 6.
Founded in 1926, the school serves as a laboratory for the Department of Education
and Child Study. The Campus School enrolls 270 children from Northampton and surrounding
communities. Approximately 80 percent of the students do not have parents employed
at Smith College.
www.smith.edu/educ
Approximately 30 Smith student interns complete their student teaching practicum
in Northampton public school classrooms each year. The teachers they assist receive
a stipend, are entitled to take a course at Smith (worth approximately $4,040)
and are granted library privileges. As part of their coursework, more than 100
Smith students serve as tutors in Northampton schools and as mentors and tutors
in the JFK Middle School after-school program. Education department faculty regularly
engage in professional development work with Northampton teachers as well.
Some 200 students in grades three to eight
regularly attend enrichment classes in this popular summer program, which just completed
its 47th year. The summer program also offers courses at the middle and high school
levels to help students meet challenges presented by courses or MCAS testing. Enrollment
for each summer course averages about 10 students. Without Smith’s human, financial
and administrative support, this very successful program could not operate.
www.smith.edu/ssw
The School for Social Work’s internship program with the Northampton Public
Schools was established in 2001 with the support of Dr. Isabelina
Rodriguez-Babcock, currently the NPS superintendent. Since the beginning of the program,
three interns have been based in schools, including Bridge Street Elementary School,
John F. Kennedy Middle School, Northampton High School and Florence Learning Center.
The interns provide approximately 700 student contacts per year in addition to their
work with educators and administrators. In 2005–06 they supported a schoolwide
focus on developing strategies to increase parental communication and contact with
teachers and administrators, and in 2006–07 the interns were active in the
district’s civil rights committee. The interns’ involvement in such policy-oriented
activities is part of the overall plan to improve the academic achievement of all
students.
www.smith.edu/garden
The Botanic Garden of Smith College is free and open to the public, serving as a
living museum and showcase of plants native to New England as well as of ecosystems
around the world. It offers free guided tours and bus subsidies (funded by the
Friends of the Botanic Garden) to local school groups. More than 1,200 local students
visit the botanic garden each year with their classes. General tours of the Lyman
Conservatory, the exhibition gallery, and outdoor gardens and arboretum can be
tailored to complement classroom study. The Spring Bulb Show, during the first
two weeks in March, and the Fall Chrysanthemum Show, the first two weeks in November,
provide enjoyment for more than 20,000 visitors annually. Additionally, the garden
donates surplus plants to sales benefiting local schools.
The Lyman Conservatory and Church Exhibition
Gallery are open 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily; closed Thanksgiving Day and from December
22 to January 2. The botanic garden’s 125-acre campus arboretum consists of
woody plant collections and specialty gardens: the rock garden, systematics garden,
Japanese garden, Capen garden, woodland and wildflower gardens, and perennial gardens.
www.smith.edu/museum
Each month Second Fridays at the Museum offered free art experiences for all ages
from 4 to 8 p.m., attracting more than 3,300 visitors this year. These events featured
activities for visitors with children, and presentations by local artists and scholars
on exhibitions and works of art from the permanent collection. More than 3,600
elementary and secondary school students visited the Smith College Museum of Art
(SCMA) in 2006–07, representing at least one class from every Northampton
public school. SCMA offers free admission to all school groups and bus subsidies
to defray school transportation costs. Teachers who reserve a tour receive a teacher
curriculum guide, sample pre- and post-museum visit activities for the classroom
and a CD with a selection of art images. In addition, more than 100 teachers, most
from Hampshire and Hampden counties, attended professional development programs
this year. Approximately 1,500 parents and children took advantage of the museum’s
family programs, which are offered free of charge with materials in Spanish and
English. Outreach to community organizations has increased family day participation
to include a diverse range of local citizens and groups. Anyone with a library
card can also visit the museum for free by checking out a pass from Forbes Library.
The Smith College Museum of Art is open
to the public for a modest fee and is free to all on the second Friday of every month
from 4 to 8 p.m.
www.science.smith.edu/departments/engin
During the 2006–07 academic year, two teams of Smith senior engineering students
worked on projects that will directly benefit the residents of Northampton and a
long-established Northampton-based company. Additionally, several of the student
engineering organizations were involved in outreach activities to introduce students
from local elementary and middle schools to engineering concepts and encourage them
to learn more about engineering.
One team of four students collaborated with
the Northampton Department of Public Works (DPW) to design a new residential solid
waste transfer station for the City of Northampton adjacent to the current residential
transfer station and DPW office. Combining results from a traffic study and waste
capacity analysis with input from current transfer station employees and users, the
team’s new transfer station would improve capacity, traffic patterns, public
safety and usability. The project will be continued by the DPW. In previous years,
engineering students have worked with the DPW to design a new sidewalk for Bridge
Road, to redesign utilities on Ridgewood Terrace and to design drainage modifications
for lower Elm Street.
Another team worked with Northampton-based
Kollmorgen Electro-Optical to improve efficiency and reduce waste in their engineering
design and development processes. The students made several suggestions, resulting
in a best practices document, a visual management binder and a training module.
As part of their annual community outreach
activities, the Smith Chapter of the Society of Women Engineers and Tau Beta Kappa
cosponsored Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day. This program brings girls in grades
4 through 8 to the Smith campus for workshops that introduce basic engineering and
design concepts, such as materials engineering, fluid dynamics, the reverse engineering
process and robotic design. The daylong event allows girls to interact with female
engineering students and conduct experiments in a college engineering classroom.
Society of Women Engineers members also shared their research for NASA and their
experience testing a robot in near-zero gravity conditions with the science club
at Northampton’s JFK Middle School. Members of Tau Beta Kappa introduced students
at the middle school to the engineering design process through class lectures and
demonstrations. After these classroom sessions, members returned for a Saturday engineering
design challenge where the middle schoolers built and raced balloon-powered toy cars.
Smith Engineering students in several engineering
organizations tutored and mentored local elementary and middle school students. In
recent years, the Smith students have volunteered in Springfield at the Chestnut
Accelerated Middle School and Gerena Community Elementary School and in Northampton
at the JFK Middle School and Jackson Street Elementary School.
www.smith.edu/sos
The Office of Voluntary Services works with S.O.S. (Service Organizations of Smith)
to provide a comprehensive community service program that encourages and supports
student engagement in Northampton and the surrounding communities. Opportunities
for students include long- and short-term community-service and social justice
projects or intensive internships at nonprofit agencies; on-campus projects that
benefit the local community and educate the Smith community about local needs and
issues; a leadership development and training program for students; and community-based
courses, placements and educational forums. The Office of Voluntary Services and
SOS develop long-standing partnerships with community agencies to facilitate effective
engagement with the local community.
More than a thousand student placements are
developed annually. Students work as tutors, case advocates, day care assistants,
mentors, researchers, Web designers, parent aides and emergency shelter staff assistants.
They also assist at animal shelters and at local food, nature and social justice
programs.
The Phoebe Reese Lewis Leadership Program,
which runs for two weeks every January, connects students to community nonprofit
organizations. Working with faculty and staff mentors, the twenty students in the
leadership program use their leadership skills to assist local organizations in assessing
their strengths and achieving their missions. Over the past three years, students
in the leadership program have worked with the Northampton Academy of Music, Friends
of Children (a local advocacy organization for children in foster care), the Northampton
Center for the Arts and MANNA, the soup kitchen in Northampton (www.smith.edu/acad_specialleadership.php).
The college gives employees a paid workday
each year to engage in community service, allowing them to take a regular workday
to volunteer in a community activity or event in Northampton or the city or town
in which they live. Many Smith employees are already actively engaged in ongoing
community service work, serving on boards as well as in direct service work for local
nonprofits.
www.smith.edu/fornorthampton.php
Smith’s president and senior staff members meet on a regular basis with the
Northampton mayor and other city officials to discuss issues and opportunities of
mutual interest. The president’s Community Advisory Board -- with approximately
40 civic leaders -- meets twice a year.
www.smith.edu/pubsafety
The Office of Public Safety provides protection and services to the college community,
its visitors and guests. Officers provide police- and service-related functions
24 hours a day, year-round. Officers are trained professionals with police powers
on campus property and are certified in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, semiautomatic
external defibrillator and first-aid techniques. Public Safety works closely with
the Northampton Police Department and the Hampshire County District Attorney’s
Office. Transmittal of information and requests for assistance are a matter of
routine policy and procedure. Public Safety works with the Northampton Fire Department
for emergency ambulance service and participates on behalf of the college in the
city’s emergency management team. The college provides overtime employment
at time-and-a-half pay for a significant number of Northampton police officers,
particularly during commencement and reunion weekends when, for example, approximately
$5,800 is paid for the services of more than two dozen city police officers for
traffic control.
www.smith.edu/its/onecard
The college recently expanded the debit card account on the Smith College OneCard,
enabling students to make purchases at participating Northampton vendors. From
the program’s inception through June 30, 2007, purchases have totaled $91,910.
The college recognizes the importance of making
financial and in-kind donations to the community. Recent contributions to the city
and local projects include:
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$150,000 over three
years to the Cooley Dickinson Hospital |
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$50,000 over five years
to the Northampton Education Foundation |
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$27,214 to the Northampton Fire
Department for the purchase of two thermal imagers |
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$5,000 to the city of Northampton
in support of the city’s Sustainable Northampton planning process |
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$2,000 annual sponsorship of the Daily
Hampshire Gazette’s Newspaper in Education program |
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$2,000 to the Northampton Arts
Council for cultural programming |
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$1,000 to Northampton on the Same
Page: A Communitywide Reading Event |
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Ongoing support for the Northampton
Center for the Arts’ First Night program |
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$480 to Friends of Children and
$205 to the Interfaith Cot Shelter, donated by employees at the college’s
annual picnic |
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$500 to the American Friends Service
Committee in support of the city’s Martin Luther King, Jr., Day celebration |
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Loan of a shuttle bus and driver
for the Cooley Dickinson Hospital ribbon cutting ceremony and open house for
the new patient building and Kittredge Surgery Center |
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Creation of a map of the Northampton
rail trail network by the Smith College Department of Mathematics and Statistics’ Spatial
Analysis Lab for the Friends of Northampton Trails and Greenways |
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A venue for the Northampton Arts
Council’s Four Sundays in February performance of “Musica Jibara:
Mountain Men of Puerto Rico” for approximately 1,800 students from JFK
Middle School and the Northampton High School |
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Catering for the grand opening
of HAP’s Paradise Pond Apartments |
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www.zipcar.com
In August 2007, Smith College partnered with North America’s largest car-sharing
service, Zipcar, to offer the Smith community and local residents a cost-
effective alternative to car ownership. The company estimates that each Zipcar eliminates
the need for more than 20 privately owned vehicles. Smith currently has two Zipcars.
Over the past 10 years, Smith has been recognized
by the Northampton Historical Commission for renovation work in Pierce Hall, Chase/Duckett
houses, Northrop/Gillett houses, Hopkins House, Sessions House, Tenney House, Wesley
House and Conway House. Leers Weinzapfel (fitness center architects) won the 2007
AIA Firm Award.
Smith contributes $79,607 (plus $32,349 from
the Student Government Association) of the $550,000 given by Five Colleges, Incorporated,
in support of the PVTA (Pioneer Valley Transit Authority) bus service between Northampton
and Amherst. The bus system, which carries nearly one million passengers annually,
also opens the Northampton housing market to University of Massachusetts students,
thus helping to promote full use of the city’s rental housing.
The president of Smith serves as an ex-officio
member of the Academy of Music board of trustees and also designates another member
of the Smith community to serve on the board. Over the years the college has contributed
computer hardware and software to the academy as well as funds for renovating and
upgrading this historic building.
Through Five Colleges, Incorporated, Smith
helps provide 168 hours a week of music, information and cultural programming.
The college donates used computer equipment
to area nonprofit organizations, churches and municipal departments. From July 1,
2006, through June 30, 2007, the college donated a total of 66 Windows PCs and 34
Apple computers. The original purchase price of these totaled approximately $238,000.
Significant donations of equipment were made to Northampton Public Schools, Holyoke
Creative Arts and a number of family service agencies in the Pioneer Valley.
www.smith.edu/emo/external.php
Smith College provides the use of its facilities with no rental fee to local public
high schools for their graduation rehearsals and ceremonies. Graduation ceremonies
held at Smith in recent years include the Smith Vocational and Agricultural High
School, Hampshire Regional High School, Northampton High School and the Hampshire
Educational Collaborative. College facilities are also available to external groups
to host meetings, conferences or other events for a modest rental fee plus direct
costs and insurance. See the guidelines for use of college facilities by external
organizations at the Web site above.
www.smith.edu/calendar (all
events)
Community members are encouraged to attend lectures, films, poetry readings, concerts,
Vespers, the Staff Council summer children’s movie outdoors and interterm activities
at Smith, most of which are free. Many concerts and plays are also open to the public
for a modest fee.
www.smith.edu/libraries
The Smith libraries hold more than 1.4 million items -- books, periodicals, videos,
music, manuscripts and more. Neilson Library is Smith’s main library for
humanities and social sciences, supplemented by three branch libraries: the Young
Science Library for sciences, the Josten Library for performing arts, and the Hillyer
Art Library for fine arts and architecture. Special collections include the Mortimer
Rare Book Room, the Sophia Smith Collection (women’s history) and the College
Archives. All libraries are open to the public, who may use most materials and
computer databases on-site at no charge.
Members of the Smith, Five College and
Smith alumnae communities may borrow from the libraries with an authorized borrowing
card. For a modest fee, library cards are also available to adult residents of Hampshire,
Hampden and Franklin counties. These cards allow holders to borrow books from the
Neilson and Young Science libraries.
www.smith.edu/athletics/facilities
The Smith athletic facilities are often used by local school and community groups
for practices or competitions. The Northampton High School indoor track team and
the field hockey team (some special night games in field hockey), the Smith Academy
field hockey team, the Massachusetts Intercollegiate Athletic Association (tennis
tournament) and the Pioneer Valley Interscholastic Athletic Conference track league
host events at Smith throughout the season. Youth groups such as Northampton Suburban
Basketball, Special Olympics Basketball, Sugarloaf Track, Baystate Swimming, Northampton
Area Swimming, Pioneer Valley Swim Leagues and Northampton Rowing also use the
facilities for their sporting events. Facilities are provided for free or on a
fee-for-expenses basis. The Indoor Track and Tennis facility’s track is open
daily from 6 to 8 a.m. from January to March for members of the community. Faculty
and student teachers provide sports instruction to local children in basketball,
field hockey, softball, squash, swimming, pole vaulting, soccer and more.
Smith contributes expertise to the Northampton
Conservation Commission, Historical Commission, Energy Conservation Commission, Planning
Board, Department of Public Works (GIS data input) and the Water Department and the
Northampton Board of Public Works, as well as the People’s Institute and the
Massachusetts Audubon Society. Grounds consultation is provided to area schools and
colleges for athletic fields and turf areas.
Some 67 Smith students work at 20 nonprofit
institutions in the Pioneer Valley, including the Forbes Library, ARISE for Social
Justice, the Center for Public Representation and the Northampton Community Music
Center. Smith allots approximately $56,517 to fulfill its commitment to pay 75 percent
of the students’ salaries. In addition, 95 Smith students worked as reading
tutors at 13 elementary schools and agencies as part of the America Reads challenge.
Smith pays 100 percent of their earnings, at a cost of $36,703 in 2006–07 from
a federal grant for that purpose.
Approximately 50 non-Smith members of the
community audit courses at Smith each semester for $50 per course ($200 for dance,
computer science or intensive language courses).
www.sunnysidekids.org
About half of the 48 children currently enrolled are from non-Smith families. The
college provides physical plant services and a rent-free building. Smith students
serve as assistants and interns. Northampton High School students work at Sunnyside
in the context of child development coursework and as interns. Sunnyside participates
in the Northampton Community Partnerships for Children Council.
Sunnyside is a Universal Pre-Kindergarten Pilot Program for the Massachusetts Department
of Early Education and Care and receives a Classroom Quality Grant from DEEC to promote
school readiness and positive outcomes for children.
www.smith.edu/forthill
The Center for Early Childhood Education at Fort Hill offers full- and part-time
enrollment to children, in infancy through preschool, of Smith College employees
and of other members of the surrounding communities. Approximately half of the
80 families enrolled are not affiliated with the college. The program welcomes
visits by early childhood professionals and extends training opportunities to local
programs. |
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Smith's
Impact in Northampton
Volunteer
Activity
Smith & the
Northampton Public Schools
Educational
Outreach
Community
Advisory Board
College Council
on
Community Policy |
