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Carol T. Christ, Smith Alumnae Quarterly,
Summer 2009
As a scholar of Victorian literature, I was delighted when an alumna recently quoted
me the financial advice expressed by Charles Dickens’ Wilkins Micawber, the
debt-plagued yet hopeful clerk whose journey is so vividly central to the lessons
of David Copperfield:
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen
and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure
twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
As Dickens enthusiasts know, despite his pragmatic aphorisms, Micawber is famous
for his faith that “something will turn up.” And while Dickens’ novels
of economic hardship and financial malfeasance are finding a renewed readership in
these difficult times, I know of no college relying on faith that their current ways
of doing business can be restored when the stock market eventually “turns up.”
Indeed, even absent the present -- and significant --
financial downturn, even if our endowment magically returned to former levels, Smith
and its peer institutions must confront the long-term limits of our educational model:
the rising cost for students and families of a small, residential college education;
a highly competitive admissions environment; and a commitment to educational access
that requires rapidly increasing resources for financial aid. For all of higher education
today, but particularly for small residential colleges like Smith, the financial
situation has brought into sharp focus the urgency of finding new ways to deliver
the excellent education for which we are known.
As I write this column, Smith is approaching the culmination of a year of intensive
financial planning, focused not only on reducing the college’s annual operating
budget by $30 million or 15 percent but on securing a position of excellence and
distinction well into the coming decades. Our task, as a community, has been to reconcile
our high aspirations with the financial realities of a new era. As Board of Trustees
Chair Cornelia Mendenhall Small ’66 puts it, “Smith needs to be on the
crest of the wave, not under the water.”
The students, faculty and staff on the planning committee
faced challenging choices in recommending cost-saving strategies to meet present-day
financial declines while, in the longer view, assuring Smith’s strength, resilience
and bright future. That balancing act is, in essence, the key to managing a college
like ours -- and, not incidentally, its endowment: to ensure that coming generations
of students can benefit from the same exceptional education available to Smith students
today. To that end, I am proud that the plan maintains our foundational commitment
to meeting students’ full demonstrated financial need, ensuring that high-achieving
young women from all backgrounds will continue to have the benefit of a Smith education.
The plan extends well beyond the 20 committee members whose recommendations and
counsel informed it. It is also the product of extensive feedback from students,
faculty and staff, expressed in more than a dozen campus forums over the fall and
spring semester and through more than 1,000 suggestions and comments posted on my
Web site. Alumnae and parents participated as well, responding to my update letters
and offering perspective and suggestions from their own realms of experience and
professional expertise. I am grateful for the thoughtful ways in which the Smith
community has engaged with this process, even while, in many cases, confronting new
financial realities in their own lives.
A budget plan is not a vision but an essential foundation for one. By assuring the
college’s financial resilience we are opening the door for the very important
conversations we need to have about Smith’s role in making excellent private
liberal arts education more economically and pedagogically sustainable. And we are
ensuring the centrality of the curricular initiatives presented in The Smith
Design for Learning.
In the coming years you are likely to see Smith take
a leadership position in forming cooperative, strategic alliances with other institutions,
whether among the Five Colleges, other study abroad providers, or universities around
the world who can offer students opportunities to develop their capacities for leadership
in different global contexts. Some of this cooperation will take the form of less
visible but critically important operational consolidation in areas such as information
technology services, coordinated purchasing of electronic and traditional library
acquisitions and exposure to career development opportunities. We will develop new
and flexible options for students in all fields who seek an international experience
as part of their Smith education. And we will take advantage of the growing capacities
of online communication, including social networking and other new media resources,
to enhance dialogue with alumnae and prospective students, bringing the story of
Smith today more immediately and vividly into their -- your -- lives.
Even as we tighten our belt, planning for a smaller staff and, through retirements
and resignations, a somewhat smaller faculty, we continue to enhance the curriculum
by developing academic programs that capitalize on our existing distinctive resources.
A new concentration in Archives combines course work, internships, and independent
research in the Sophia Smith College and College Archives to help students develop
understanding the use and professional management of the records of our collective
past. Similarly, the new Museums Concentration, for which the Smith College Museum
of Art will serve as a focal point, will give students a foundation in the history
and administration of museums and the critical issues they face as repositories of
material culture. A faculty and staff task force will meet this summer to recommend
other new offerings, at the undergraduate and pre-professional level, focusing on
those with the potential to generate new revenue streams and bring new populations
to Smith year-round.
This spring, we admitted a spectacular class, selected
from the largest pool of applications in Smith’s history. We welcomed back
to campus a record-breaking number of alumnae for Reunion 2009. In these moments,
I see Smith through the eyes of the past, present and future, as an institution that
has met past challenges with creativity and common purpose, continued to invest in
its faculty and staff, thoughtfully developed its academic resources and facilities
-- including Ford Hall, whose opening we will celebrate next fall -- all in service
of providing an extraordinary and transformative education. This is where we rightly
place our faith -- in Smith’s demonstrated ability to renew itself and
to meet women’s
educational needs as they evolve over time. An alumna from the class of 1963 put
it best: “Rock on, Smith College,” she wrote earlier this year. “You
gave me the gift of resiliency and I see you are still giving the gift.” |
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