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Smith College is proud to be a vital part of Northampton and a partner in its success. This information attempts to capture the extent of the college’s economic, civic and cultural participation in the life of a city we value and celebrate.
Our most important resource is our people. Smith’s mission is tied to education and the public good, and for that reason one of our most important local commitments is to the students and teachers in Northampton’s public schools. In recent years, we have redoubled our outreach to educators who want to incorporate the college’s exhibitions, performances, visiting speakers and faculty experts into their students’ experiences. This is one of the many ways in which members of the Smith community—students, faculty, staff and alumnae—contribute to the city of Northampton, whether professionally or as private citizens.
Carol T. Christ
President, Smith College
The information below was updated in October
2009 (based on 2008-09 figures).
1,308. Approximately 42 percent live in Northampton,
Florence and Leeds.
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Annual payroll (Wages and Benefits) $114,721,322 |
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Annual payroll (Wages only) $88,108,979 |
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Construction during July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2009 $129,244,223 |
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United Way contributions by employees in 2008–09 $164,117 |
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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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Admission visitors 3,894 |
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Estimated expenditures by students
and visitors $3,700,000 |
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Note: The college’s OneCard ID system allows students to make purchases at participating Northampton businesses using a debit feature associated with their ID card. In 2008-09 Smith students spent $47,726 with Northampton merchants through this program. |
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Estimated college expenditures
with local businesses $12,000,000 |
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Grants for Research, Teaching and
Outreach $5,469,206 |
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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. |
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2008–2009 Real Estate Taxes paid on rental and non-rental properties $378,799 |
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Smith is Northampton's largest
taxpayer. |
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2008-09 City Fees:
Water and Sewer $520,936
Waste Removal $56,597
Permits $34,180
Licenses/Inspections $8,495
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www.smith.edu/outreach
Smith’s Office of Educational Outreach promotes the sharing of the college’s educational resources with schools and communities through a variety of programs, both on and off campus. In October 2009, Smith hosted the annual meeting of the Northampton Education Association, an afternoon celebration for more than 200 local educators.
Partners in Health program
This partnership between Smith and the Northampton Public Schools supports local students’ academic and social success through ongoing summer and academic-year programming for middle and high school students, teachers and guidance counselors. This year, in collaboration with Byron Zamboanga, associate professor of psychology, the partnership designed and implemented a comprehensive survey of students at Northampton High School to elucidate factors affecting alcohol use.
Center for Science Outreach
With support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, this center recently was established at Smith. Thomas Gralinski, retired department head of technology education at Amherst Regional High School, serves as coordinator. Since January 2009, the center has hosted outreach events for more than a thousand K–12 students and teachers involving more than 130 Smith faculty, staff and students. For example, Christine White-Ziegler, associate professor of biological sciences, and her students partnered with Northampton High’s biology department to offer daylong lab sessions at the high school as well as at Smith, where the high school students performed genetic analyses using state-of-the art molecular technologies.
Summer Science and Engineering Program
www.smith.edu/ssep
Most recently Smith’s renowned Summer Science and Engineering Program, now in its 20th year, enrolled 114 high school girls, including seven from Northampton and western Massachusetts, awarding these students more than $18,000 in financial support to attend the program.
In 2008–09, 76 area high school students took 86 Smith courses (valued at $385,280) at no cost to the students or their parents. Since 1990, 1,124 area high school students have taken 1,283 courses at Smith.
www.smith.edu/wfi/pop.htm
Peer Outreach Program
The college’s Women and Financial Independence program sponsors the Peer Outreach Program, which brings Smith students into local middle and high schools to lead workshops on personal finance topics such as budgeting, responsible management of credit card and student loan debt, and understanding simple versus compound interest to maximize savings. Since 2002, Smith students have led several such workshops at Northampton 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/museum
Second Fridays at the museum offer monthly free art experiences for all ages, attracting more than 4,100 visitors to its 12 programs, offered monthly from 4 to 8 p.m. These events feature hands-on art activities for adults with children ages 4 and above, as well as presentations geared to college students and the general public by local artists and scholars on special changing exhibitions and works of art from the museum’s permanent collection.
School groups
More than 3,000 elementary and secondary school students visited the museum (SCMA) in 2008–09, 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 curriculum guide, sample classroom activities for before and after the museum visit, including a selection of art images. In addition, more than 135 teachers, most from Hampshire and Hampden counties, attended professional development programs this year.
Family Days
Approximately 1,110 parents and children took advantage of the museum’s Family Days, 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.
Admission
Anyone with a library card can also visit the museum for free by checking out a pass from Forbes or Lilly 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.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 and other ecosystems around the world.
Tours
Free guided tours (given to more than 1,800 students each year) and bus subsidies, funded by the Friends of the Botanic Garden, are offered to local school groups. General tours of the Lyman Conservatory, the exhibition gallery, and outdoor gardens and arboretum can be tailored to complement classroom study. Tours are also free for local groups and nonprofit organizations. Local community members participate in an intensive volunteer training program and serve as tour guides.
Exhibitions
The Spring Bulb Show in March, the Fall Chrysanthemum Show in November, the changing gallery exhibitions and the outdoor gardens provide enjoyment for more than 60,000 visitors each year
www.science.smith.edu/departments/engin
Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day
Smith’s chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and Tau Beta Kappa, the engineering honor society, cosponsored Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, bringing more than 50 girls in grades four through eight to the Smith campus for workshops on structural design, chemical engineering, materials engineering, fluid dynamics and robot design and fabrication.
Special Activities
SWE members also hosted a hands-on bridge-building activity during National Engineers Week that was open to the Northampton community.
JFK Middle School
Smith students shared zero-gravity research with the middle school science club, provided class lectures and demonstrations on engineering design, and created a design challenge in which JFK students built and raced balloon-powered model cars.
www.smith.edu/educ
Public School Involvement Approximately 30 to 40 Smith graduate and undergraduate student interns complete their student teaching practicum in Northampton public school classrooms each year. The teachers who serve as mentors receive a stipend, are entitled to take a course at Smith (which would normally cost $4,040) and are granted library privileges. Many Northampton Public School teachers have completed graduate work at Smith. As part of their coursework, more than 100 Smith students serve as tutors in Northampton schools and as mentors and tutors in a variety of high school and middle school programs. Education department faculty members regularly engage in professional development work with Northampton teachers.
Approximately 200 students in grades three through eight attend enrichment classes in this popular summer program, formerly the Smith-Northampton Summer School, which is in its 49th year. For many young people SAIL is the only available opportunity for summer educational engagement. The program has an important impact in helping students maintain the gains they have made in school over the course of a summer. Licensed and experienced teachers teach most of the courses. Students from Smith’s graduate program in education serve as interns in the program. 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 superintendent Isabelina Rodriguez-Babcock. 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. Since 2005, the interns have supported a schoolwide focus on developing strategies to increase parental communication and contact with teachers and administrators. 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/sccs
The Smith College Campus School serves children from kindergarten through grade six. 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/forthill
The Center for Early Childhood Education at Fort Hill offers full- and part-time enrollment to children, 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 is inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach to early childhood education. Tours and observations of the school and professional development opportunities are offered to educators in the community.
www.sunnysidekids.org
Smith provides physical plant services and a rent-free building to the center, about half of whose 50 children come from non-Smith families. Smith students serve as assistants and interns, and Northampton High School students work in the context of child development courses and as interns. Sunnyside participates in the Northampton Community Partnerships for Children Council and is NAEYC accredited. Sunnyside is a Universal Pre-Kindergarten Pilot Program for the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) and receives a Classroom Quality Grant from EEC to promote school readiness and positive outcomes for children.
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 2008–09, the Trustee Grant was set at 50 percent of tuition ($17,905 per student). Nine students received assistance in this program for awards totaling $107,432. Three students received the grant for the entire year. Six students received the grant for one semester.
In 2008–09, institutional financial aid to Massachusetts residents totaled $8.58 million.
Since 1999, Smith has provided Greenfield Community College and Holyoke Community College with classrooms for evening adult education.
As a member of Mayor Higgins’ Northampton Community Education Consortium—a coalition of adult basic education programs, workforce training and family support services and higher education partners—Smith provided $20,000 in seed funding to help create an adult learning center in downtown Northampton. The center, which is in James House on Gothic Street, will co-locate Pioneer Valley community and four-year colleges, Adult Basic Education Programs, Workforce Training and Family Support Service to provide integrated educational and career readiness and worker training programs and services to assist children, youth, adults and families who face challenges with English language, literacy or other barriers to successful education and work pathways. Currently Smith is working with the consortium to identify how the college faculty, staff and student volunteers will support programming at the James House in the upcoming academic year.
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.smith.edu/fornorthampton.php
Smith’s president and senior staff members meet regularly 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.
In 2003 Smith established a $3 million Affordable Housing Replacement Fund to construct 26 apartments at 36 Bedford Terrace and an adjacent new apartment building. Completed in spring 2007, these units replaced the 26 Smith-owned units, in the area of Belmont and Arnold avenues, that had been removed for the college’s engineering and science building. Subsidies for construction of these units, combined with the value of the property, represent a $3.285 million commitment from the college to affordable housing. Working with the Valley Community Development Corporation, the college provided $220,000 to subsidize the development of four new apartments at 46–48 School Street.
Transportation
Smith engineering students worked with the Northampton Office of Planning and Development to design an access spur connecting the Manhan Rail Trail to South Street via Hebert Avenue. The team met with community members in developing construction plans for the spur, which is expected to be implemented in the near future.
Conservation
Students worked with Northampton-based Augustus Design to create and validate a system to monitor energy usage by manufacturing facilities. Other local design projects included modeling and construction drawings to stabilize the Roaring Brook Stream in Whately and designing an energy-efficient wing for the Westhampton Memorial Library.
Data Collection
An environmental monitoring system designed by Smith engineering faculty and located at the college’s MacLeish Field Station in Whately provides real-time data to the public and municipalities on local air quality and weather conditions. The data are also useful for studying the impacts of climate change on local air quality.
www.smith.edu/cso
The Community Service Office engages Smith students in meaningful community service work and leadership training that enhances the educational experience, meets community needs, provides opportunities for reflection, models the development of effective partnerships with local nonprofit organizations and encourages a lifelong commitment to community engagement.
Placements
The office develops a range of opportunities, including long-term placements and internships, short-term projects and leadership experiences on our board. Smith students can work with adults, children, the disabled and refugees; in hospitals, schools, jails, shelters, museums, and other nonprofit agencies; or become involved with the Community Service Office board or become a House Rep to engage others in community service.
Partner agencies Gray House in Springfield (working with immigrant adults to help with language or specific skills), Homework House in Holyoke (tutoring at-risk children), Fit Together in Hadley (being an exercise partner to an individual with developmental, intellectual or emotional challenges), Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity, Friends of the Homeless Interfaith Emergency Cot Shelter in Northampton, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, and other agencies in the Northampton area extending to Springfield.
Phoebe Reese Lewis Leadership Program
Students in this program provided consultation and analysis to Northampton’s Interfaith Cot Shelter, which provides emergency shelter to homeless individuals in Northampton. Students worked with Cot Shelter board members and volunteers on long-term planning to help make their organizational structure more effective and on issues of outreach and community education about homelessness. Previously, students in the leadership program have worked with the Academy of Music, Friends of Children, Mass Bike, the Northampton Center for the Arts, and the MANNA soup kitchen.
Smith sent volunteers to help with local educational and community programs with the American Friends Service Committee on January 19, 2009. Another Day of Service was offered to the Smith community on February 7, 2009, when Smith volunteers registered to help at one of five local agencies: All Out Adventures, Habitat for Humanity, Kate’s Kitchen, Northampton Council on Aging, or Rockridge Retirement Home. As part of Smith’s Day of Service in 2009, the campus center was a drop location for over a week for donations for the Salvation Army, the Goodwill, Margaret’s Pantry and St. Jude’s.
Employee Service
The college gives every employee a paid work day 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.
Some 72 Smith students work at 29 nonprofit institutions in the Pioneer Valley, including both Forbes and Lilly Library, GirlsEyeView, the Prison Policy Initiative and Safe Passage. Smith allots approximately $63,640 to fulfill its commitment to pay 75 percent of the students’ salaries. In addition, 80 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 $ 44,373.29 in 2008-09 from a federal grant for that purpose.
Smith contributes expertise to the Northampton Conservation Commission and the Northampton Board of Public Works, as well as the People’s Institute, the Academy of Music, the affordable Housing Trust and Housing Partnership, the Community Preservation Committee, and the Transportation and Parking Commission. Grounds consultation is provided to area schools and colleges for athletic fields and turf areas.
Smith is regularly recognized by the Northampton Historic Commission for the renovation work that is done within the Elm Street Historic District. Park Annex is slated to receive a Historic Preservation Award from the Commission for work completed in the summer of 2008. We have received approval from the Elm Street Historic Commission for our plans to renovate Park House this summer.
www.smith.edu/pubsafety
The Department 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. The officers are sworn special state police officers and are trained professionals with police powers on campus property. Additionally the officers are certified in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, semiautomatic external defibrillator and first-aid techniques. Public Safety often works in conjunction with other agencies, particularly the Northampton Police Department and the Hampshire County District Attorney’s Office. The department coordinates 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.zipcar.com
Since 2007, Smith has partnered with Zipcar, North America’s largest car-sharing service, to offer the Smith community and local residents a cost-effective alternative to car ownership. Smith has five Zipcars; the company estimates that each Zipcar eliminates the need for more than 20 privately owned vehicles.
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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$220,000 to subsidize the development of four new apartments at 46–48 School Street |
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$164,117 contributed by Smith employees to the United Way Campaign in 2008–09 |
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$$150,000 over three years to the Cooley Dickinson Hospital |
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$100,000 over four years to support WFCR’s capital campaign |
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$100,000 to the City of Northampton as one-time support for the Northampton public schools |
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$50,000 over five years to the Northampton Education Foundation |
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$20,000 in seed funding to the City of Northampton for the establishment of the Northampton Community Education Consortium |
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$17,500 in annual membership support of downtown Northampton’s Business Improvement District |
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$5,000 contribution to The First Churches Capital Campaign |
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$4,000 to Historic Northampton to sponsor a historic marker kiosk |
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$3,091 for the Ryan Road School Science Night |
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$3,000 to the Northampton Education Fund from the first annual Smith Fit 5K road race |
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$2,312 to support the Hampshire County overnight lock up facility |
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$2,000 annual contribution to the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts |
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$2,000 annual sponsorship of the Daily Hampshire Gazette’s Newspaper in Education program |
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$1,500 and venue space to the Northampton Center for the Arts for First Night Northampton |
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$1,000 to the Northampton Arts Council for the Four Sundays in February series |
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$1,000 to sponsor the Paragon Awards |
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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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$500 to the Hampshire Choral Society as a sponsor of its 2009 concert at Smith College |
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$500 to the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce in support of its Downtown Banner Program |
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$500 to the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce in support of its Downtown Holiday Lighting Program |
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$500 sponsor of the Hot Chocolate Run for Safe Passage and continued donation of cookies and hot chocolate for the event |
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The college continues to make payments to Northampton in lieu of tax revenue that would have been remitted on properties Smith removed in the Green Street area |
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The college donates used computer equipment to area nonprofit organizations, churches and municipal departments. From July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2009, the college donated a total of 100 Windows PCs and 41 Apple computers and 2 printers. The original purchase price of these totaled almost $210,000. Significant donations of equipment were made to Safe Passage, Northampton Public Schools, Frontier Regional/Union 38, Hampshire Educational Collaborative and a number of family service agencies in the Pioneer Valley. The college libraries also donated four study carrels to the Jackson Street School.
Smith contributes $80,047 (plus $32,349 from the Student Government Association) of the $550,000 given by Five Colleges, Inc., 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.
www.smith.edu/emo/external.php
Smith College provides rent-free use of its facilities 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 (rain site) 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/athletics/facilities
Local school and community groups often use the Smith athletic facilities for practices or competitions. The Northampton High School indoor track team and the field hockey team (some special night games in field hockey), 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 Baystate Swimming, NOMADS field hockey teams, Sugarloaf Youth Track club events, tryouts for local softball and baseball teams, 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 various sports throughout the year.
www.smith.edu/libraries
The Smith libraries hold more than 1.4 million items—books, periodicals, CDs, DVDs, 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 Neilson and the Young Science libraries.
www.smith.edu/calendar (all
events)
Community members are encouraged to attend lectures, films, poetry readings, concerts, Vespers and interterm activities at Smith, most of which are free. Many concerts and plays are also open to the public for a modest fee.
This information is based on 2008–09 figures; it was updated in September 2009. Although we attempt to make this information as comprehensive as possible, there may still be some unintentional omissions. Please send comments or corrections to the Office of College Relations, Smith College, Northampton, MA 01063. Visit www.smith.edu/fornorthampton.php for more information. |
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Smith's
Impact in Northampton
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