Honoring Leadership

The Wurtele Center collaborates with a range of other Smith offices to facilitate two annual campus traditions that celebrate the leadership of students, as well as other members of the college community. Both the Impact Bears, which grace our campus in the fall, and Twenty Toasts, a special event that gathers in the spring, offer opportunities for our community to lift up the work of others and honor their impact at Smith and beyond.

Spring 2026

Twenty Toasts

Twenty Toasts is a new annual tradition at Smith College to honor and reward students whose leadership has had a significant impact on the Smith community. Twenty Toasts is a festive sit-down dinner, where the 20 selected honorees and the person who nominated them will gather with Dean Keller to share a meal and hear toasts delivered that highlight the contributions of each of the 20 students. At the dinner, nominators are assigned a toast for an honoree other than their own to read aloud, making the event a shared celebration of student impact. Honorees are awarded a monetary prize of $200 as an investment in their future leadership.

How to Nominate a Student

To nominate a student for Twenty Toasts, consider the selection criteria below, and write a 350–500 word toast in honor of the student that speaks to those criteria. All guidelines for writing and submitting your toast can be found in the Twenty Toasts Nomination Form.

Nominations are due by the end of the day on Sunday, March 1, 2026. Please reach out to wurtelecenter@smith.edu.

Selection Criteria

The Selection Committee will be using the following criteria when selecting honorees (For examples of each, see the FAQs):

Evidence of efforts toward meaningful impact: How well does the toast (and nomination) speak specifically to the impact the nominee worked towards in the community (at Smith or beyond)?
Evidence of fostering collaboration: It’s impossible to achieve a meaningful impact in a community working entirely alone. In what ways does the toast (and nomination) document how the nominee took the initiative to work intentionally and inclusively with a diverse group of people to achieve a collective purpose?
Specificity: Does the toast include specific details, anecdotes, or evidence to clarify and celebrate the nominee’s impact?
Coherence and readability: Is the toast clearly written and easy to read aloud? (We encourage you to read your toast aloud to yourself before submitting!)

Selection Committee

All nominations will be judged by a committee of five judges, made up of a combination of current Smith faculty or staff, alums, and local community members. The 2025–26 selection committee includes:

Forrest Hudes, Prototyping Studio Manager, Design Thinking Initiative
Kelsey Parks Smith ’17, Assistant Athletic Director for Equity, Inclusion and Student-Athlete Well-Being
Cai Sherley ’19, Assistant Director of Multicultural Affairs
Maleka Donaldson, Associate Professor of Education and Child Study
Emma O’Neill-Dietel ’22, graduate student in history, University of Massachusetts

Important Dates

Date(s)	Details
Monday, February 9	Nominations open for submissions
Friday, February 20	All Things Toast 3–4:30 p.m. Eat fancy toasts while learning to write a toast with Susan Daniels
Sunday, March 1	Submission deadline for nominations
Monday, March 23	Honorees and nominators notified
Wednesday, April 15	Twenty Toasts Reception 4:30–5 p.m. Dinner 5–7 p.m.

Nomination Process

Who is eligible for nomination?
All currently enrolled Smith undergraduate students who are in good academic and disciplinary standing are eligible for nomination.

Can I nominate myself?
No, but if you feel like you’d like to be a nominee, you can encourage someone to nominate you.

Can I nominate more than one student?
Yes, but please submit a separate nomination for each individual you would like to see honored.

Can groups or clubs be nominated?
No, for this event, nominations must be for individual students. If you wish to recognize a group, we encourage submitting separate nominations highlighting each student.

Can the toast be written collaboratively by multiple nominators?
Yes, but one person must submit it and be listed as the official nominator. This person will also be the nominator invited to attend the dinner.

Can I nominate a student who is studying abroad, away, or on leave?
Yes. If that student is selected, we will record a video of their toast being read aloud at the event to be shared with them.

What are examples of efforts towards meaningful impact?
Some questions you might consider: Did the nominee work in collaboration with others in a department, center, house, club or org to advance an initiative or foster change on campus? Did the nominee collaborate with an outside organization to do work that betters the experience, lives, community, or culture in or outside of the college? (“Impact” can be broadly defined and refer to large, medium, or large-scale efforts, and nominees do not have to hold formal leadership positions in order to be nominated. However you’re defining impact, please make the case for that definition in your nomination.)

If I nominate someone, am I still eligible as a nominee?
Yes, you are welcome to nominate someone and you will remain eligible to be nominated yourself.

What if more than one person nominates the same student?
The Selection Committee will choose the strongest nominator’s toast based on the criteria to attend the event.

Should I write the toast in first-person, discussing my personal experience with the nominee?
Because another person at the event will be reading the toast aloud, you should not write the toast in first-person but instead discuss the honoree’s leadership from a third-person point of view.

Can I submit a nomination in another language?
Yes, but you’ll need to submit your nomination with an English translation so that it can be read by the Selection Committee and spoken aloud at the event by another nominator or a proxy.

Can I use generative AI tools to write the toast?
The toasts for this event are meant to be personal testimonies to the impact of another student on the community. As such, generative AI tools may not be used to write the toasts.

Notifications & the Event

If I nominate a student, how will I know if they have been selected?
Once honorees are selected, we will notify all nominators to let them know if their nominated student was selected as an honoree.

I am a student who was nominated. How will I know if I am selected as an honoree?
Honorees will receive invitations in campus mail around March 23. If you don’t receive an invitation, you can assume you weren’t selected as an honoree.

What if I am an honoree and cannot attend the event?
Your toast will still be read aloud at the event, and we will take a video of that reading to share with you after the event.

As a nominator, why am I reading aloud a toast that was written by another nominator for another student instead of reading my own toast?
This event is structured as a community celebration of collective impact. Nominators read toasts for students they didn’t nominate as a way of extending that celebration, and it gives the nominator and honoree a chance to listen to their toast together.

What should I wear to the event?
There is no formal dress code for Twenty Toasts, but we would encourage you to wear something that feels festive and celebratory.

Are there any requirements related to the $200 prize?
The Twenty Toasts monetary prize is intended as an investment in honorees’ future leadership, but recipients may use the prize however they like. Recipients should be aware that withholding taxes may be collected in accordance with IRS policies.

Fall 2026

Impact Bears

In fall 2026, we will install life-sized geometric bear statues as an homage to our new moniker, the Smith Bears, in several public indoor locations across campus. The surface of each Impact Bear will include affixed cardboard shapes that can be removed and decorated. Passersby will be invited to decorate a shape as a tribute to community members or collaborative efforts that have had a positive impact on campus. Keep an eye out for the Impact Bears around campus in November!