The Office of Alumnae Relations and Development is thinking of our Smith community during these challenging times and we hope you are receiving the support you need.

All across the world, alums are stepping up to help their communities, stay social and lift up the most vulnerable among us. We’ve been so inspired—but not surprised—by the thoughtfulness and generosity of our community. In that spirit, we hope this collection of resources provides a welcome source of connection, information and even entertainment during this difficult time.

Remember to also update your profile in the Alumnae Directory, connect with your class and see how your local Smith club is keeping in touch. For updates on Smith’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak, visit the college’s coronavirus disease page.

Get Updates

• See all letters from President Kathleen McCartney to the community.
• College Magazine has put Smith on its list of the Top 10 Best Colleges for Networking. 
• Smith's board of trustees recently welcomed seven new members for four-year terms.
• In a February 25 letter to the Smith community, Kathleen McCartney announced that she will step down in June 2023, after spending a decade as the 11th president of Smith College.
• Author and education leader Beverly Daniel Tatum told graduates at Smith’s 144th Commencement Sunday that despite challenging times, “change is possible”—and “it won’t happen without you.”
• Learn about Smith's innovative geothermal campus energy project that will help the college achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.
• Floyd Cheung, professor and vice president for equity and inclusion, talks about implementing Toward Racial Justice at Smith College—a strategic plan developed to advance antiracism work and make Smith truly inclusive.
• Read our big announcement: the college will replace loans with grants in financial aid awards.
• Learn about the college's Here for Every Voice scholarship aid fundraising initative and watch students talk about how aid has transformed their lives. 
• Explore your new alum website. Bookmark the site, then check back often to watch webinars, learn about upcoming events, see what fellow Smithies are up to and much more.
• Watch a conversation with the 2022 Smith College Medalists.
• Discover how Smith is one of this year’s top 10 Fulbright-producing institutions, and then meet some of our Fulbright recipients.

Learn Something New

• President McCartney regularly invites influential thought leaders to share their expertise and inspire discourse on key topics. Learn more, check out the 2021–22 Year on Democracies and watch past events.
• In this Tricycle Talks podcast, James Shaheen interviews Smith professor Jay Garfield about his new book, Losing Ourselves. They discuss the Buddhist notion of “self” as an illusion, and why belief in a self is what Garfield calls “a recipe for a very narrow kind of egoism; it’s a recipe for the idea that ... the first thing I’ve got to do is to care about myself.”
• Economists Laura D’Andrea Tyson ’69 and Lenny Mendonca co-author this article about voting rights in America. 
• A recent Washington Post article examines how institutions like Smith College and Ohio State University are managing the challenges, benefits and sustainability of no-loans financial aid policies.
• In this NPR podcast, Loretta Ross, associate professor at Smith, and Barbara Phillips, former associate professor at the University of Mississippi School of Law, talk with Stanlie James about her new book, Practical Audacity: Black Women and International Human Rights, in which James profiles 14 Black women dedicated to human rights.
• Professor Carrie Baker writes about the economic impact of the pandemic on women.
• Smith staff member Jessica Bacal shares six ways to manage job uncertainty, ambiguity and disruption.
• Ida Offenbach Abbott ’69, author of Retirement by Design: A Guided Workbook for Creating a Happy and Purposeful Future—a 2020 pick by The Wall Street Journal for best book on retirement—shares tips on how to approach retirement.
• Sign up for one of Smith’s webinars and check out the Smith College Alumnae YouTube Channel for one of our previously recorded webinars, including:
• The Rejection That Changed my Life
• Explore Julia Child ’34’s former home in the south of France
• Band of Sisters: The Smithies Who Brought the Grécourt Gates to Smith
• Learn about Smith's Botanic Garden as well as supporting your own garden from Tim Johnson, director of the Smith Botanic Garden, and John Berryhill, Botanic Garden curator.
• Watch Smith College faculty share their expertise.
• View this workshop on using LinkedIn and the Alumnae Directory for your job and internship search. 
• Check out Smith Executive Education, including upcoming free programs.

Feel Good

• More than a thousand alums celebrated Reunion. See the photos.
• Check out the winners of this year’s Global Encounters Photo Contest.
• Download a beautiful Smith-themed Zoom background.
• Watch Pam Victor 88’s webinar “Establish a Resilience-Building Happiness Practice.”
• Watch Laura Holmes Haddad ’97's webinar “Sustaining Our Creative Selves in Times of Crisis.”
• Check in with your local club to see what programs are offered in your regional community.

Connect on Social

• Follow us on Facebook. For a much-needed distraction, check out #PetsofProfs.
• Browse the Smith College YouTube Channel. You might especially like:
• The YouTube Playlist: Smith Alumnae Today, which includes the video series “How I Got that Job.” 
• The YouTube Playlist: Campus Features, which features Gloria Steinem ’56, the Design Thinking Initiative, the Historic Clothing Collection and more.
• Find us on Instagram.
• Get the latest news on Twitter.

Connect with Campus

• At the 2022 Gender and Work Symposium, President Kathleen McCartney presented "Not a Cloister—An Intervention," in which she talks about the evolution of women's colleges and what stands out about Smith.
• Nine Smithies earn 2022 Fulbright Fellowships, including scholarship recipient Madeline Turner '21.
• Tour the new Neilson! Join Nyla Conaway ’23 and Jess Buslewicz ’22 as they take you on a seven-minute video tour of the new Neilson Library.
• Smith College Dining recently received the 2022 Local Hero Award from CISA—Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture.
• Tour the Brown Fine Arts Center. Follow Amelia Burton ’23 on a three-minute tour of the Brown Fine Arts Center at Smith, featuring the Smith College Museum of Art, Hillyer Hall, Hillyer Art Library, Oresman Gallery, Graham Hall, the Student Art Gallery and the art classrooms. See what’s currently showing at each gallery on the art department’s events and exhibitions page.
• Read about Liam Knight AC ’23J and Vivien Qiao ’23—this year’s recipients of the prestigious Goldwater scholarship.
• Currently in its 10th year, the Draper Competition has helped level the playing field for women entrepreneurs. It is now the No. 7 collegiate entrepreneurship contest in the country. In this article, Melissa Parker Draper ’77, who founded the competition with her husband, Tim, reflects on the past decade.
• Learn about the student-run Common Goods Resource Center, including how students recently voted in favor of paying a higher Student Activity Fee to benefit the center, which provides low-income students with dignified access to materials and funding resources.
• Check out the Insider’s Guide to the Center for the Environment, Ecological Design, and Sustainability (CEEDS).
• Read the Insider’s Guide to The Lewis Global Studies Center.
• From pressing for increased assistance for undocumented students to finding ways to make college resources more accessible, the Advocacy for Equity Council has been a major catalyst for student organizing around social justice issues at Smith.
• Carolina A. Miranda ’93 on the art and architecture of Maya Lin.
• The Wall Street Journal describes Maya Lin’s redesign of Neilson Library as defined by transparency, accessibility and luminosity.
• Sign up for our virtual Alumnae Book Club. 
• Read this New York Times article about the new Neilson Library, then take a video tour.
• The Poetry Center had an incredible lineup of virtual readings this past year. Watch the recordings.
• Explore the Smith College Museum of Art from home. You can check out the blog, the YouTube channel, the Look and Listen series and more.
• Watch student videos at The Narratives Project.

Relax with Smith-Related Entertainment

• In this interview, two-time Oscar winner Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy '02 reflects on her experience directing two episodes of Ms. Marvel, which features the franchise's first-ever Muslim superheroine.
• Hear about Ruth Ozeki '80's new book, The Book Of Form And Emptiness, and then read it with the Smith Alum Book Club. Ozeki won the prestigious Women’s Prize for Fiction for the book.
• Just weeks after the release of her latest novel, To Paradise, bestselling author and New York Timesthe editor Hanya Yanagihara ’95 sat down with the SAQ to share her inspirations
• The latest issue of Smith’s student-run arts and literary magazine, Emulate, is now online.
• Popular children's book author Martha Tolles '43 publishes her first adult novel.
• In the Regency romance world—which was given a huge boost by the Netflix series Bridgerton—Sarah MacLean ’00 is a superstar. She recently published her 15th novel, Bombshell.
• Judith Raymo ’53 writes about her purchase of the little-known, recently rediscovered short story “Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom,” written by Sylvia Plath ’55 during Plath's sophomore year at Smith.
• Read Imperfect Alchemist, by Naomi Miller, professor of English language and literature, in which she brings to life the extraordinary women authors who were published and read in the time of Shakespeare. 
• Read Band of Sisters, a novel by Lauren Willig about Smithies who risked their lives in France during World War I.
• Peg Wyant '64 discusses breaking gender barriers, and her experiences working for Procter & Gamble, in her new memoir, One Red Shoe.
• See more. If you would like to have your work appear on our list of Smithie authors, please fill out this form.

Smith in the Community

• Over 30 years ago, Lata Nayak MED ’91 founded a school in Mumbai, India, for children who are hard of hearing.
• Gretchen Menn ’97 recently won the Martin/Guitar World 2022 No Limits Challenge.
• Nolvia Delgado ’11 will be the new leader of the Kaplan Educational Foundation, which provides high-potential, low-income students with academic and financial support and leadership training.
• Meet Margaret Nyamumbo ’11, founder and CEO of Kahawa 1893, the first Black- and woman-owned coffee brand to be sold at Trader Joe’s.
• Get to know Thelma Golden ’87, director and chief curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem.
• In this New York Times podcast, Ruth Ozeki ’80—novelist, Smith professor, and Zen Buddhist priest—talks about the link between meditation and writing.
• In an interview with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly, activist Gloria Steinem ’56 talks about democracy and the ongoing battle for reproductive rights in light of the Supreme Court’s recent arguments about a restrictive Mississippi abortion law.
• Listen to Professor Loretta Ross’interview on NPR’s TED Radio Hour about calling in the calling out culture.
• Professor Loretta Ross also offered powerful testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform urging continued access to health care and reproductive rights.
• Listen to Shaharzad Akbar ’09, human rights advocate and former Afghani government adviser, reflect on being a refugee from her home country for a second time and why she will never stop working for change.
• Professor Carrie Baker writes about the new Texas abortion ban.
• Cynthia Telles '74 named ambassador to Costa Rica.
• Wendy Sherman ’71 named Deputy Secretary of State.
• Busy Burr ’83, president and CCO at Carrot, shares career advice.