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We began the process of strategic planning by carefully
examining external trends and by identifying Smith’s distinctive strengths
and challenges. Because an effective strategic plan for Smith will identify goals
and initiatives that position the college more powerfully in the environment it will
inhabit over the next decade, increasing the stature, reputation, and visibility
of the college, it is useful to begin by reviewing the college’s strengths
and its challenges.
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| A. |
Curricular Opportunities |
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Vigorous
interdisciplinary culture, with relative agility in creating cross-disciplinary
connections and projects |
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Particular
notable strengths, including unusual resources for the study of the arts; significant
breadth and depth in international programs; nationally distinguished School
for Social Work |
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Distinct intellectual
profile, including emphasis on historical perspectives and disciplines, on
public policy concerns in the social sciences |
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Significant commitment
to science and a new and nationally prominent engineering program |
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Libraries, an art museum
and botanic garden that serve as important learning centers in undergraduate
education |
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| B. |
Faculty Resources |
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Identity
as a research college, whose faculty are actively engaged in research |
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Low student/faculty
ratio, providing opportunities for close student work with faculty |
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Faculty focus on teaching
and interest in pedagogy |
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Tradition of Excellence |
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National
reputation |
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Historic
and current focus on women |
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Engaged and accomplished
alumnae body, reflective of women’s history and achievements over the
past century |
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Other |
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Strong financial
position and extraordinary facilities; dedicated and accomplished staff |
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Five College
cooperation |
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Distinctive house system,
with many opportunities for development of student leadership; vibrant culture
of student organizations, athletics and music, with many opportunities for
leadership; rich program of campus events and cultural programming in the arts |
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The planning process is fundamentally about excellence -- how we not only sustain
but strengthen the excellence of the college in the context of the changing world
in which we live, thereby enhancing our stature and reputation. I have tried
to focus this planning process on student learning -- on the commitment we share
to a certain set of experiences that students should have as well as on the distinctive
character of a Smith education. Getting this right is a demanding task, requiring
the best from us as teachers and scholars, and as leaders and as Board members responsible
for the quality and health of the college. We must be deliberate and perceptive
about the particular character of our strengths, about what our students need to
know, and about how they learn best.
Many times in its history, Smith has responded to an
emerging educational need with a pioneering initiative -- the foundation of its study
abroad programs in the '20s and '30s, the founding of the School for Social
Work after World War I, the creation of the Ada Comstock Scholars Program in the
'70s, and of
the Picker Engineering Program less than a decade ago -- to name just a few of
the remarkable initiatives in Smith’s history. These initiatives in turn,
as they have developed and become part of the fabric of the college, come to constitute
our particular character. They are at once a blend and a balance of innovation
and historical understanding, indications of institutional nimbleness, flexibility,
and the capacity to recognize and respond to national needs. They bring to the education
of our students the best in us as learners.
As we have weighed proposals for particular initiatives, we have been guided by
a set of strategic goals. You will remember that we ended the last academic
year with the identification of eight strategic directions. We have given much
attention this year to focusing and integrating those directions. We propose
three goals:
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| Strategic
Goals |
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Develop the
Smith Design for Learning, enabling students to take best advantage of the
open curriculum and promoting a culture of research, inquiry, and discovery,
across departments and programs, both academic and non-academic |
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Enrich student
life by capitalizing on the unique opportunities offered by a women’s
college in preparing women for rewarding lives in a rapidly changing world |
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Model and teach purposeful
engagement with society’s challenges, developing the capacity for leadership
by deepening students’ understanding and commitments to public affairs,
national challenges, other cultures, global issues, and stewardship of the
natural environment |
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In order to achieve these goals, and the excellence
to which we aspire, we must make a set of foundational commitments. I list them below.
Finally, by reviewing carefully both the discussions
at the round tables and the proposals we have received, we have defined several core
areas where we believe initiatives will achieve our goals. These are not a set of
selected proposals, but the areas in which we will develop proposals from the many
good ideas we have received.
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| Core Initiatives |
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Enhancing student learning |
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Identify
and locate the capacities all students should develop in their time at Smith
and the ways in which the curriculum and the co-curriculum will achieve those
goals |
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Strengthen
advising, with particular attention to opportunities for student reflection
on goals, to mapping the curriculum outside of the major, and to developing
electronic portfolios to augment students’ transcripts |
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Strengthening students’ entry
to Smith |
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Provide pre-orientation
programs for all students |
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Make first-year
seminars available to all first-year students |
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Create a
Stride-like program in areas of applied student experience |
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Provide a
reflective opportunity in the sophomore year for students to map the rest of
their time at Smith, including curricular and co-curricular choices |
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Strengthening the junior
and senior experience, developing students as engaged scholars |
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Create a
program of interdisciplinary upper division seminars |
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Develop more
opportunities to learn research methods prior to the senior year |
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Identify and enhance
opportunities for independent work, increasing faculty ability to work closely
with students on research and other independent projects |
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Combination of programs in leadership,
work, and wellness to create a center coordinating and integrating student
opportunities in these areas |
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Life after Smith |
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Enhance the
alumnae network for our students and for alumnae themselves |
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Selectively
develop post-baccalaureate programs, building on areas of our strength |
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Continued development of science
and engineering, building interdivisional connections through initiatives in
the Arts and Technology, Design, and Environmental Science and Policy |
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| 7. |
The Smith Institutes for Leadership
and Civic Engagement |
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Develop a
set of three institutes -- one devoted to international and cross-cultural
study; one devoted to community-based research and learning; and the third
devoted to sustainability and the environment. These institutes should be more
than umbrellas, integrating existing activities, and they should have a family
resemblance. |
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Read
the proposal for an institute in sustainability and the environment (Microsoft Word document) |
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Read
the proposal for an institute in community engagement (Microsoft Word document) |
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Read
the proposal for an institute in international and cross-cultural study (Microsoft
Word document) |
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Read
an update from the working group on international and cross-cultural
study (Microsoft Word document) |
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Each institute
should be a locus for student learning, and should provide cross-disciplinary,
project-based opportunities for students. learning. |
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The centers
may also offer first year and interdisciplinary seminars and research methods
courses, and they can use Praxis resources. |
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Students
will have the opportunity to affiliate with the Institutes over the course
of their four years. |
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Flexibility
and responsiveness to changing issues and concerns should be the hallmarks
of the institutes. |
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Smith educates women of high ability and promise to reach their potential for intellectual
achievement and creativity. Smith is committed to access and to diversity, seeking
to recruit highly talented, ambitious women of all backgrounds. Through the
power of an excellent liberal arts education, Smith provides its students with the
habits of mind and imagination that allow them to contribute to the betterment of
the world.
Essential to achieving this mission is a community dedicated to learning, scholarship,
discovery, creative inquiry, and critical thought. Through engagement with social,
political, aesthetic and scientific issues, Smith educates students to appreciate
the complexity of human history, to understand the variety of the world’s cultures
and social systems, to care for the earth’s resources, and to fulfill their
responsibilities to the local, national, and global communities in which they live.
Smith
College began in the nineteenth century, in the mind and conscience of a New England
woman. In her will, Sophia Smith articulated her vision of an liberal
arts college for women, with the purpose that “what are called their ‘wrongs’ will
be redressed, their wages adjusted, their weight of influence in reforming the evils
of society will be greatly increased, as teachers, as writers, as mothers, as members
of society, their power for good will be incalculably enlarged.” Through
its commitment to academic excellence and its active engagement with the issues of
our time, Smith College remains faithful to its founder’s ideals.
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Essential
Information
The Context: Smith
& Beyond
Questions
to Consider
Organization &
Structure
Process & Timeline
Assumptions
About
the Planning Process
Planning Updates
NEASC
Reaccreditation
Join the Planning
Process
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