Announcing Compass 2035

Dear Friends,

I am so pleased to announce the completion of the strategic planning process that we began last fall. For the past 18 months, we have asked ourselves who we are at our very best and who we must become to meet the challenges and opportunities of a rapidly changing world. In that time, faculty, students, staff, trustees, and alums have come together with candor, imagination, and purpose to envision a better, bolder Smith. Yesterday, the board of trustees endorsed the final plan, setting us on a course for a future shaped by our values, grounded firmly in the liberal arts, and guided by our mission to educate women of promise for lives of distinction and purpose.

Compass 2035: A Strategic Plan for Smith College offers a compelling and unifying 10-year vision animated by our commitment to engage the world around us. The plan reflects our dedication to cultivating truly transformative leadership in an inclusive, rigorous, and vibrant intellectual community where every student’s curiosity is engaged.

At the heart of Compass 2035 are four goals:

• Inspire and support academic excellence, exploration, and discovery.
• Prepare students for fulfilling careers and a lifetime of leadership.
• Foster well-being, belonging, and resilience across our community.
• Strengthen institutional sustainability to ensure the college’s enduring contributions to the world.

These goals do not stand apart from one another; they work in concert across our eight key initiatives to ensure that Smith remains an exceptional place where students from every background come in search of knowledge, purpose, and possibility.

The past year has been one of great reflection as we looked back on 150 years of history and were reminded of Sophia Smith’s desire to “right societal wrongs” by founding a college for women that would empower its graduates to use their education to do “the most good [for] the greatest number.” Today, our students come from nearly every state and 67 other countries. Over 300 world-class faculty teach across 65 academic departments and programs that offer more than 1,200 courses. Our alum network spans 116 countries with over 54,000 individuals whose influence is felt in boardrooms, classrooms, laboratories, legislatures, and communities around the world. Smith has never been more dynamic, connected, and ready for what comes next.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to every member of the Smith community who offered ideas, feedback, and support during the strategic planning process, particularly members of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee and those who participated in our working groups. Your contributions have shaped a plan that is not just strategic but profoundly hopeful. Compass 2035 belongs to all of us and is ours to take forward.

As we look ahead, I am filled with tremendous optimism. Smith has always been a place where bold ideas take root, where emerging leaders find their footing, and where a spirit of compassion and care for the greater good takes flight on the wings of academic excellence. With this plan, we do more than honor Sophia Smith’s vision—we renew it as a promise for a new generation. Through our collective efforts, we will ensure that Smith remains, in Sophia’s words, a “perennial blessing to the country and the world.”

Your imagination, dedication to our mission, openheartedness, and steadfast belief in all that this college can be serve as points on a map, aligning our path forward and orienting us toward our true north.

With compass in hand, our journey begins.

Sarah Willie-LeBreton
President