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May 17, 2003
Good morning. This, my first
Ivy Day, is a very moving occasion. On this day, through
the
rituals we enact, we join the college’s past and future.
Anticipating their graduation tomorrow, the seniors join
in the alumnae parade. When they plant the ivy at the end
of this convocation, they perform an act that at once symbolizes
the beginning of their own lives as graduates and the ties
that will continue to bind them, as alumnae, to the college.
Ivy
Day has a long history at Smith. It was first celebrated
in 1884, when the graduating class decided to create a visible
and lasting monument to their presence
here. That first celebration took place on the porch of College Hall and consisted
of an Ivy poem, an Ivy oration, an Ivy song, and the planting of the Ivy, one
plant for each graduate. I suppose my speech could be reckoned a descendent of
the Ivy oration, but I’m disappointed that we no longer have an ivy poem
or an ivy song. The first illumination took place in 1888; the first procession
in 1894. By 1900, the ceremony was moved to Seelye Hall, perhaps because College
Hall had received its quota of ivy. Alumnae apparently began to attend the festivities
early on.
In 1906, a newspaper account
states, “The alumnae began to provide
spontaneous entertainment for the crowd. As they waited for the Ivy procession
to begin,
they roamed around the campus and sang songs.”
I didn’t encounter
any alumnae breaking spontaneously into song on my way over here, but the day
has just begun.
The Alumnae Parade began in
1908, and by 1912, the college had hired a band. In 1946,
it was decided that each member
of the class would no longer plant a
sprig of ivy, but that one plant would stand for all, perhaps because the available
buildings had all been covered. If only ivy grew on glass, the Campus Center
could offer some interesting opportunities.
My speech today, in which I
describe the current state of the college, also has some
interesting history behind it.
This convocation is also called The Last
Chapel, referring back to a time when chapel was required, and the President
used the occasion of the last chapel to tell students and alumnae about the
highlights of the year. Although the custom of chapel survives
only in the vestige of the
name of the event, the content of my talk today bears considerable resemblance
to the content of those last chapels, decades ago, when President Neilson,
or President Mendenhall, or President Dunn talked about the
achievements of the
year.
This has been a remarkable year.
Its most striking events have been the opening of the Brown
Fine Arts Center, the reopening of the Lyman Plant House
and Botanic
Garden, and the construction of the Campus Center. These three buildings have
something important in common; they join the college and the community in which
it sits, reflecting Smith’s founding vision that the college be part
of the practical life of the town. The Brown Fine Arts Center represents this
connection
in its architectural design. A long walk extends along the side of the building
on Elm Street leading to the doors of the atrium, a magnificent space through
which you can walk into the main quadrangle of the campus. When the Mayor of
Northampton and I cut the ribbon at the museum opening just two weeks ago,
a line of people of all ages and occupations, extending more than a block,
poured
into the museum, eager to see its new galleries and its magnificent collection.
The classroom and studio wing
of the building has been open since the fall, and students
and faculty have been enjoying the wonderful new studios,
classrooms,
and library. But the reopening of the museum has had an exhilarating effect
on
the entire community. At the faculty preview, I kept meeting colleagues with
radiant faces, happy to see the paintings that had become old friends in
their beautiful new home.
The reopening of the Lyman Plant
House, just last weekend, with its expanded facilities,
has brought a similar joy to the community. It was President
Seelye who, in the early years of the college, determined that it should
have both
an art museum and a botanic garden. We can be grateful for his vision and
for the
generosity of generations of alumnae and friends for these exceptional
resources
for the academic program, now more beautiful and more useful for study
and teaching than ever.
When the Campus Center opens
in the fall, it will provide a new kind of space, a central
meeting
place to knit the community together, a crossroads
for
us all.
Several other construction projects
are in various stages. We have just completed a renovation
of Lilly Hall, and the School for Social Work has moved back
into
its beautifully refurbished quarters. Work has begun on the renovation of the
Mendenhall performing arts complex and on the new fitness center, funded with
a generous gift from the Olin Foundation, to be built over the connector between
Scott and Ainsworth Gymnasiums. Finally, we have selected an architect, Bohlin,
Cywinski, and Jackson, for the new engineering building, which will be constructed
on Green Street.
I have been talking so far about
our buildings; I would like now to talk about what goes on
inside them. Our new academic initiatives are
all thriving. We will graduate our first class of engineers next year, and
the program
continues
to attract enrollments larger than we anticipated. Engineering, together with
the Sally Ride Science Club, began the year by announcing Toychallenge, a national
toy design competition, sponsored by Hasbro. The winner will be announced at
a national showcase here at Smith next month. This winter, a team of our engineering
students was chosen to conduct anti-gravity experiments at NASA in Houston.
The
Poetry Center has continued with another extraordinary set of readings this
year, including ones by Adrienne Rich, Lucille Clifton, Richard
Wilbur, James
Tate, and Derek Walcott. The Kahn Institute, which supports collaborative research
projects in the liberal arts involving faculty and students, completed its
fifth successful year. The Women and Financial Independence
program, designed to provide
women with the financial knowledge to manage their professional and personal
lives, is going strong; Professor Randall Bartlett has just given his very
successful workshop for seniors, From Backpack to Briefcase.
Finally, the Praxis Program,
which guarantees each student a paid internship, has over 350 students about
to begin internships this summer. The organizations for which they will work
range from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the Emergency Room
at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a WorldTeach program in Costa
Rica, the ABC News Medical Unit, a Smithsonian excavation of prehistoric sites
in Laborador, Harvard’s National Human Genome Center, and the Modesto,
California, Townsend Opera Players.
The success of all these initiatives
owes so much to the generosity of alumnae. Our comprehensive
campaign has just reached
a total of $320 million, including
gifts that have funded the Brown Fine Arts Center and the Lyman Plant House.
Our endowment for Praxis has reached $10.3 million, and we are in the middle
of trying to reach a Kresge Challenge to fund the building of the Campus Center.
These gifts are particularly important at a time of economic challenge like
the present. Because of the volatility of the stock market, the value of the
college’s
endowment has declined. Because of difficulties in the economy, the financial
need of our students has significantly increased. We are therefore particularly
grateful for the scholarship gifts given this year. We have received more than
thirty new endowed scholarships, including one named for Otelia Cromwell, the
college’s first African-American graduate.
The heart of the college is
its faculty. We have nine new faculty joining us next year, all first choices
in the searches that led to their appointments;
four of them are American minorities. Current faculty members have continued
to distinguish themselves by earning awards. Helen Horowitz’s book, Rereading
Sex: Battles Over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in 19th Century America, won the Organization of American Historians’ Merle Curti Prize and was
a finalist for the Society of American Historians’ Parkman Prize and
the Pulitzer Prize in History.
John Davis has been invited
to give the Arlene and Leon Fuhrman Lecture at
the University of Pennsylvania and has been appointed Senior Scholar in Residence
at the Musée d’Art Americain in Giverny, France, and Sharon
Seelig has won a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Indeed,
our
faculty and staff have received grants totaling over $5.5 million, the highest
amount
ever awarded in any one year to faculty and staff at Smith, and particularly
notable in light of the difficulties of the economy.
Faculty work with students
in much of the research that they do. This year we had an extraordinary
display of that research in a daylong celebration, Collaborations,
in which 170 students presented the work they did in conjunction
with 100 faculty. The students ranged from first-years to seniors, and
the
fields of the projects from astrophysics to theater. The day was an exceptional
testimony
to the opportunities and achievements of a Smith education.
In the area of admissions, Smith has had great success this year. We had
the second highest number of applications in the college’s history
-- 3303 applicants for the first-year class. While it is still too early
to provide you
with final enrollment figures, we hope to greet a first-year class next fall
of 640, in addition to 65 Ada Comstock scholars, and 75 transfer students.
I want to thank our alumnae for all the hard work you do in helping us recruit
students. These students will have a hard
act to follow. We have had a bumper year in national
fellowships. Alyson Shaw, Ada Comstock ’04, has won a Beinecke scholarship.
Rachel Balsham and Stephanie Jakus, both Class of ’05, have been named
Boren Scholars. Three students have been named DAAD Fellows, a Smith record:
Romney Haylett, ’02, Lisa Unangst ’03, and Karyn Wheeler ‘03.
Sarah Winawer-Wetzel ’05 has been named a DAAD undergraduate scholar,
a Smith first. Eight students have been named Fulbright Fellows, another Smith
record. Merrill Baker will go to Madagascar; Catherine Campbell to Trinidad
and
Tobago; Chong-Hye Yi to Russia; Christina Gosack to Senegal; Hannah Wenzel
to Germany, all Class of ‘03; Radha Blackman ’92 to Bulgaria; Samantha
Martin to Greece; and Ann Scagel to Korea, both ‘98. Lauren Wolfe ’05,
has been named a Goldman Sachs Global Leader, one of only 20 nationwide, and
a Goldman Sachs Global Leadership Institute Delegate, one of only ten nationally
and a Smith first. Heather Dyson and Eva LaDow, both ’04, have been named
Goldwater Scholars, and Kimberly Sullivan ’03 has been named a Humanity
in Action Fellow. We have two Mellon Fellows, a Smith record: Joanna Patterson ’03
and Carrie Geiser, AC ‘03. We have five Mellon Minority Undergraduate
Fellows: Eundria Hill, Tiarra Kernan, Anna Lugo, Agunda Okeyo, and Irma Torres-Leon,
all
Class of ’05. We have one Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, Mary Shows ’02,
who will go to Chile, one Rotary World Peace Scholar, Elektra Gorski ’99,
who will go to Japan, and one Udall Scholar, Elizabeth Callaghan, Ada Comstock ’04.
These last two are Smith firsts. Damiana Astudillo-Eterno AC ’03 is a
Woodrow Wilson Scholar. And in an achievement of a different sort, through
the ROTC program,
senior Debbie Cwalina will be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S.
Army on May 24.
Our students have also excelled
in sports. Softball, tennis, and soccer all made it to the
semi-finals of their conference, and varsity
crew finished second
in
its conference. Smith’s novice crew finished first in its conference
final, blowing away Wellesley, Mount Holyoke, and the Coast Guard Academy by
more than
15 seconds. On May 3, Smith’s varsity crew upset Wellesley to win the
petit finals at New Englands by three hundredths of a second. Smith’s
ski team finished 6th in the MacConnell Division, missing qualifying for nationals
by
just one place. Volleyball qualified for the post season ECAC tournament for
the 7th time in a decade. Smith athletes turned in some
outstanding individual performances. Two athletes
were named conference rookies of the year -- Catherine Peo in soccer and
Kristin Maroney in softball. Kelly Duran, a junior skier, represented the United
States
in the Deaf Olympics in Sweden and won a silver medal in the Grand Slalom.
Kate Sorenson, a first-year volleyball player, earned both all conference and
regional
honors, and Smith had four athletes earn all New England awards in track and
field championships. Jessica Willis of the Equestrian team, competed in nationals
and took 3rd place in the country in her jumping class. Claire Williams, a
two-sport athlete in soccer and track and field was named Senior Athlete of
the Year.
Club sports also continue to
be active. Rugby fielded two squads; ice hockey
won three games in an expanded schedule; and the fencing club traveled to
the collegiate national championships, in which the saber
team won first place
and the team won overall fourth place. What I am most proud of, however,
are the academic records of our athletes. At a time when
there is so much concern about
low graduation rates among college
athletes, Smith’s athletes have an average GPA of 3.25. 70 of our 300
athletes have a 3.5 GPA or above, and 42 made academic all conference teams.
There was
a three-way tie for Senior Scholar Athlete: Anne Miller, squash and lacrosse,
with a 3.92 GPA; Helen Lee, an Ada Comstock scholar who was captain of cross
country and track and field, with a 3.91 GPA, and Rose Kormarek, another Ada,
squash with a 3.90 GPA.
Smith alumnae continue to distinguish
themselves in many spheres. They have received government
appointments. Marilyn Carlson Nelson ’61
has been appointed to President Bush’s National Women’s Business
Council. Betsy Hoffman ’68,
has been appointed to the National Science Board. Chief Justice of the First
Circuit Carolyn Dineen King ’59 has been appointed to chair the executive
committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Sheherbano Rehman ’85
has been elected to Pakistan’s National Assembly.
Alumnae have been
appointed to lead companies and organizations. Mary Simmonds ’71
has been named President of the American Cancer Society. Kay Maxwell ’63
has been named President of the National League of Women Voters. Lynne Withey ’70
has been appointed Director of the University of California Press. Eve Guernsey ’77
is the new CEO of JP Morgan Fleming Asset Management. Polly Mott ’78
was named program director of Community REACH.
Smithies are also accomplished
writers and artists. ’86 Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s
first book, Random Family: Love, Drugs, and Coming of Age in the Bronx, has been
a New York Times best seller. ’74 Barbara Keiler’s new book, Love
In Bloom (written under her pen name, Judith Arnold), was named one of the best
mass-market novels of 2002 by Publisher’s Weekly. ’02 Sharmeen Obaid’s
film, Terror’s Children, resulting from a project at the Kahn Institute,
was broadcast in March on the Discovery Channel. Finally, alumnae have won prestigious
awards. Mary Cowhey AC ’97 has received
the Milken Family Foundation’s National Educator Award. Toni Wolfman ’64
received the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts award for service
to the profession. Valerie Schurman ’72 has received the corporate counsel
of the year award from the southern California chapter of the American Corporate
Counsel Association. Joanne Martin ’68 was one of four Centennial Medalists
honored by the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Gloria Heath ’43
has been named one of the 100 most influential women in aviation for her work
in establishing a global, satellite-based rescue system for downed aircraft,
and Ruth Sulzberger Holmberg ’43 has been chosen Tennessee Woman of the
Year.
Each year we recognize people
who have worked for Smith and are retiring. This year we
lose the expertise and wisdom of five members of our Board
of
Trustees:
Harry Kamen, Wendy Webb ’80, Isabel Wilson ’53, Ammara Yacub ’01,
and our visionary Chair for the past five years, Shelly Lazarus ’68.
We will sorely miss them. I want to thank them for their contributions to the
direction
and strength of the college.
Seven long-time members of the faculty will retire this year after decades
of exemplary teaching and scholarship: Joan Afferica, Department of History;
Robert
Averitt, Department of Economics; Thomas Derr, Department of Religion; Peter
Pufall and Donald Reutener, both Department of Psychology; Peter Rose, Department
of Sociology; and William Wittig, Department of Music. Among them, these
faculty have given the college 271.7 years of service.
Sadly, two current
members of the Smith faculty died this year: Jerry Sachs, of the School
for Social Work, and Janet Hill of the Department of Music.
In addition, retired faculty Jeanne Powell of Biology, Dorothy Stahl of
Music,
and George Stone Durham of Geology also died this year.
Now I turn to the
seniors. There are 722 of you. 59 of you are Adas. You come from 43 states,
the District of Columbia, and 25 foreign countries.
Together,
you have completed 841 majors; 118 of you are graduating with double majors.
The most popular majors are government, psychology, economics, English,
and biology.
In the graduate program, fifty-four
of you have completed graduate studies at Smith. Some of
you have earned
master’s degrees in Education, including
Education of the Deaf, in the arts, and in Exercise and Sport Studies.
Others have come from abroad to earn a diploma in American
Studies.
All of you will
go out into the world as the alumnae seated here have before you. Some of you
will do things of which the world will take note; others will
exert your strength in channels that have no great name on the earth. But as
George Eliot says in the final lines of her novel, Middlemarch, “the growing
good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts.” It was in that
spirit that Smith’s third President, William Allan Neilson, erected the
Grecourt Gates as the symbolic entry to the college. They commemorate the work
of the Smith College Relief Unit, who went to France in 1917 to rebuild villages
in the district of the Somme that had been destroyed by the war, supported in
their work by the contributions of alumnae. Shortly after they began to rebuild,
the German army swept through again. The members of the unit evacuated the village,
helping people pack up their belongings and standing at the crossroads to direct
straggling allied soldiers, while shells exploded around them. After the allies
retook the village, they returned to rebuild, not leaving until 1920. When President
Neilson talked about the work of the unit, he emphasized that they did what they
did “for its own sake, not for glory, not for reward, but because they
knew it was well worth doing.” At the ceremony in 1924 at which the gates
were dedicated, the leader of the unit, Harriet Boyd Hawes, 1892, talked about
the opportunity for service that had been given them. “Here was a chance
for our beloved college to do its bit for humanity and to establish a tradition
of service which should take us far outside our own walls. Henceforth a Smith
girl cannot be true to her Alma Mater and remain an isolationist.” Ada
Comstock, the famous Dean of the College after whom the Ada Comstock Program
was named, spoke even more directly about the significance of the gates for the
generations of Smith students who would follow after. “They form a wide
gateway through which the graduates of this college will go out year by year
ready as were the members of this unit to dedicate all that they have to the
common lot.” Dean Comstock reminds us that walking into Smith carries with
it the responsibility of walking out, to use the education you have gained here
to better the world in which you dwell. I wish you good speed, as you follow
in the footsteps of the alumnae who have left before you. May your sprig of ivy
grow deep roots and flourishing vines. |
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