Getting Back on Financial Track: Columnist Michelle Singletary Speaks Oct. 30 at Smith

Smith students, faculty and staff who want to learn more about personal finances can hear from a national expert at a free half-day conference to be held on campus Friday, Oct. 30.

Michelle Singletary, a nationally-syndicated personal finance columnist for The Washington Post, will give the keynote address for “Getting Back on Your Financial Track” hosted by the Smith Center for Women and Financial Independence.

Singletary’s address, which is open to the campus community, will be held Friday, Oct. 30, at noon in the Campus Center Carroll Room. The conference is co-sponsored by the college Student Financial Services and Human Resources offices. Lunch will be provided free to participants.

Singletary will draw on more than 20 years of experience as an author and business journalist in her talk at Smith. Her award-winning column, “The Color of Money,” is carried by more than 100 newspapers nationwide, including The Boston Globe, Miami Herald and The Dallas Morning News.

Singletary is currently the host of a popular weekly live online chat on The Washington Post’s website, offering advice on personal finance issues ranging from lending your honey money (“Don’t do it,” she says) to raising money-smart kids.

A graduate of the University of Maryland and the Johns Hopkins University, where she earned a master’s degree in business and management, Singletary is also an author and former television show host. She founded Prosperity Partners Ministry, a financial mentoring program, at her church in Glenarden, Md., and she teaches financial workshops to prison inmates in her state.

René Heavlow, director of the Smith center, said Singletary’s work underscores the conference message that people of all ages and backgrounds can learn to take control of their resources.

“The fact is that learning about personal finance is a lifelong endeavor,” Heavlow said. “The Center for Women and Financial Independence is committed to helping all members of the Smith College community learn to finance the lives they want to live.”

Following Singletary’s address, conference participants can choose from among concurrent workshops on building credit, managing student loans and paying down debt.

A reception and book signing with Singletary will be held at 3 p.m. in the Campus Center.

Workshop leaders are David Belanger, Smith’s director of student financial services; Cait Moore, manager of member outreach for the UMassFive College Federal Credit Union; Pam Hannah, credit union branch manager; and Julie Shields-Rutyna, director of college planning at the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority.

Smith students, faculty and staff can register for the free workshops online.