People News, August 2014

The work of Dining Services Director Kathleen Zieja and the Dining Services staff helped Smith earn a spot on the Sierra Club’s latest “Cool Schools” list of colleges with environmentally-friendly practices.

Smith ranked 84th in the nation and got especially high marks for the way Dining Services manages food waste and uses locally grown food.

Monira ‘Mika’ El-Baz ‘85 has been named executive vice president for publicity for RCA Records. In her new role, she will head up the company’s West Coast office and identify new opportunities for the label and its roster of artists, which includes Alicia Keys, Kings of Leon and Jamie Foxx. El-Baz joined RCA in 2004 as senior vice president for publicity. She is a former co-head of Interscope-Geffen-A&M press department and senior national director of publicity for Island Records.

Lynn Hecht Shafran ’62 received the American Bar Association’s 2014 Sharon L. Corbett Award for her work with survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Shafran, a 1992 Smith College Medalist, is an internationally recognized attorney specializing in gender discrimination and sexual assault law. Since 1981, she has been director of the National Judicial Education Program to Promote Equality for Women and Men in the Courts. Shafran also has designed sexual violence curricula for numerous national, state and federal judicial colleges.

The Rev. Stephen L. White SSW ’74 was recently named chairman of the board of trustees for the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, which works on prevention of the disease. White, whose daughter died of pulmonary hypertension in 2001, has served three terms on the association’s board.

A book by Andrew S. Zimbalist, Robert A. Woods Professor of Economics, and Benjamin Baumer, visiting assistant professor of statistical and data sciences, is being considered for a Seymour Medal from the Society for American Baseball Research. The Sabermetric Revolution was published in 2014 by the University of Pennsylvania Press. The annual Seymour award honors the best book of baseball history or biography published during the preceding calendar year.

Smith College Campus School teachers Jan Szymaszyk and Lara Ramsey taught a July institute for pre-K through fourth grade math teachers from Northampton, Belchertown, Easthampton and Hampshire Regional school districts. Also attending were Smith graduate education students Dana Auger, Leanne Becker, Meaghen Chalmers, Amanda Faro, Celena Farrell, Jenay Haskins, Taylor Hedges and Lillie Sheffey. Hosted on campus by the Northampton-based Collaborative for Educational Services, the sessions examined algebraic reasoning and ways to help students with math operations.