Celebrating Diversity

Smith sets aside time during the academic year to celebrate diversity, explore cultural heritage and experiences, and challenge the community to think critically about cultural pluralism.

Cromwell Day Symposia

Smith College annually honors the pioneering courage of its first African American graduate, Otelia Cromwell, class of 1900, and her niece Adelaide Cromwell ’40, the first African American professor appointed at Smith. The entire college gathers for workshops, lectures, films and performances that focus on the topics of racism, diversity and community.

LEARN MORE ABOUT CROMWELL DAY  

Provocative campus visitors initiate lively conversations focusing on the cerebral, as well as the spiritual, contributing to the diversity of life at Smith.

Here is a sampling of those who have enlivened campus conversations:

• Laverne Cox, actress, television producer and LGBT advocate
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr., filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist and cultural critic 
• Viola Davis, Oscar-nominated, Emmy and Tony Award–winning actor
• Cornel West, civil rights activist, scholar and author
• Janet Mock, writer, cultural commentator and transgender rights activist
• Imani Perry, author of More Beautiful and More Terrible: The Embrace and Transcendence of Racial Inequality in the United States
• Claudia Rankine, poet
• Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders
• Jennifer “JLove” Calderon,  author, educator and activist
• Kevin Powell, social activist, writer, author, hip hop historian, public speaker and entrepreneur
• Elaine Brown, activist and presidential candidate
• Urvashi Vaid, director of the Engaging Tradition Project, Center for Gender and Sexuality Law, Columbia Law School
• Nikki Giovanni, world-renowned poet and activist
• Tim Wise, prominent writer and activist on issues of privilege

Heritage Months and Observances

What Are Heritage Months?

In the United States, Heritage Months are periods within the year that are designated to celebrate and acknowledge various ethnic and marginalized groups.
These are also significant opportunities that help us learn about various groups' histories and contributions to American History and understand our own cultures and identities as well as the cultures of others. 
 

Heritage Months:

January (Martin Luther King, Jr. History)

February (African American/Black History)

March (Women's History)

May (Asian American and Pacific Islander History)

June (LGBTQ+ Pride)

September (Hispanic Heritage)

October (Disability Employment Awareness)

November (Native American History)

The Five Colleges

One of Smith’s greatest assets is its access to four nearby colleges. The Five College consortium increases your choices for scholarly and social activities. Four liberal arts colleges—Smith, Amherst, Hampshire and Mount Holyoke—along with the University of Massachusetts lie within a 12-mile radius. The 29,300 students attending the schools in the Five College area further expand opportunities for friendship and cultural diversity. Some 4,000 of these men and women are students of color, and each campus sponsors social and cultural events focusing on ethnic and racial topics and experiences. You can take courses at any campus, and through the Five Colleges you can also study ethnomusicology, international relations and much more, adding to the curriculum offered at Smith.

Smith’s cultural organizations regularly plan events with their counterparts at the nearby colleges. Fare-free buses connect you to sporting events, theater performances, concerts, film festivals and hundreds of other happenings.