People News, July 2018

Smith College has been awarded a $900,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for “Writing in Service of Public Discourse,” a three-year initiative to reimagine the college’s writing curriculum to prepare students to become more effective communicators in the public sphere. The grant will support the hiring of five visiting assistant professors with expertise in writing studies, and the development of new course modules, assignments and teaching strategies at Smith aimed at helping students communicate with diverse audiences and across digital platforms.

Smith’s Jandon Center for Community Engagement and Project Coach public school student mentoring program have received Community Enrichment Awards from Chestnut Academy middle school in Springfield, Mass. The awards, based on nominations from the school’s students, were presented June 7 at the UMass Center in Springfield.

Vivian Nguyen ’20, Enas Jahangir ’18, and Gretchen Walch ’18 have been awarded Critical Language Scholarships for study this summer by the American Councils for International Education. Jahangir and Nguyen will study Arabic in Amman, Jordan and Ibri, Oman, respectively; and Walch will study Swahili in Arusha, Tanzania.

Ingrid Magalhaes AC ’19 spoke recently before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, about ending violence against women and girls. (Go to minute 1:07:40 of the video). Magalhaes is an intern this summer with Plan International.

David Ball, professor emeritus of French language and literature, has published a translation of Deposition 1940-1944: A Secret Diary of Life in Vichy France, based on the wartime diary of French novelist Léon Werth.

Jennifer DeClue, assistant professor of the study of women and gender, was a speaker at “We Do It This Way and Otherwise: New Black Queer Audiovisuals Symposium” held in June in Miami Beach, Fla.

Steven Heydemann, Janet Wright Ketcham ’53 Professor of Middle East Studies, published “Beyond Fragility: Syria and the Challenges of Reconstruction in Fierce States,” a Brookings Institution report.

Laura Kalba, associate professor of art, has been awarded the Laurence Wylie Prize in French Cultural Studies for her book, Color in the Age of Impressionism. The award is given every two years by New York University’s Institute of French Studies.

Lianna Kushi ’06 was named one of three “Women of the Year” by Girls Incorporated of Greater Lowell, Mass., for her work with Entrepreneurship for All, a nonprofit with a mission to support entrepreneurship in mid-sized cities. Kushi, who majored in East Asian languages and culture at Smith, serves on the Asian American Commission of the Commonwealth and the Greater Lowell Community Foundation.

Sabine Jean ’11 has joined the New York-based employee rights law firm of Outten & Golden. Jean, who majored in Afro-American studies and government at Smith, earned a law degree from the University of California Los Angeles School of Law.

Susannah Fox ’92 spoke about data transparency at a June event in Detroit, co-sponsored by Lear Corp. and TechTown. Fox, a former federal health chief technology officer, is currently leading a national survey project focused on adolescent and young adult use of social media to share health information.

Elisa Jensen ’87 had a show of her paintings in May at David & Shweitzer Contemporary in Bushwick, N.Y. The show “amounts to a miniature retrospective of the artist,” said a review in WhiteHot Magazine.

Tracy Keogh ’83 has been named to the board of directors of Cisive human resources management company. Keogh, who is currently chief human resources officer of HP Inc., majored in psychology at Smith and earned a master’s degree in business administration from the Harvard Business School.

Anne Balazs ’82 has been named the new dean of the University of Toledo College of Business and Innovation as of August 13—the first woman to serve in the position. Balazs, who majored in economics at Smith and earned a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, had served as interim dean of Eastern Michigan University’s College of Business.

Landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander ’44 has been promoted to the rank of Companion of the Order of Canada, the highest achievement of the Order. Oberlander, one of the first women in the post-World War II era to establish a landscape architecture practice, received a Smith Medal in 1982 and an honorary degree from the college in 2003.