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SMITH IN THE NEWS
August 28, 2003 edition

 

STUDENTS AND ALUMNAE IN THE NEWS

"[The rooms at Smith] are gorgeous and huge and they all have a lot of character. You could play polo in the halls. I wasn't going to be able to enjoy my college experience if I felt like I was living in a box. I'm a person who needs the place where I can just go and it'll be my own little space."
- Sara Brickman '07, "Roommate Roulette?", Newsweek/Kaplan "How to Get Into College," September 2003

"Monic's hard work eventually won her a coveted spot in the Ada Comstock Scholars Program for older women at Smith College, which covered most of her tuition and living expenses. Her A-plus work at community college translated to B grades at Smith, but rather than become frustrated, she worked harder, earning her first A there last year as a junior."
- "Monic Rogers-Reed, 29: From rebellious teen to college scholar," Essence, September 2003

"At Wesleyan University in Connecticut this fall, a new "gender-blind" floor of dorm rooms will welcome students who don't identify with their biological gender. At Smith College, students voted this spring to eliminate the word 'she' from their constitution, to be respectful of women students who identify themselves as male. And at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, a handful of 'unisex' bathrooms are being created, at the urging of a few transgender activists."
- "Finding a gender-blind dorm," Boston Globe, July 27, 2003

"My first words were, 'Mom! Dad!' I was so excited I wanted really badly to share the moment with them."
- Rachel Bortfeld Steeley '07, "Springfield students get Smith scholarships," Republican, July 21, 2003

"[Kerry Nagle's] smiling all the time, but don't let that fool you, she's a tough kid."
- Basketball Coach Liz Feeley, "Smith sophomore helps YWCA win," Republican, July 11, 2003

"After two and a half years in a women's school, I know that I belong to a legacy far older than that of any college: the legacy of women supporting, teaching, loving, befriending and sustaining other women. Every day I go to school, I know that legacy is alive."
- BriAnne Dopart '03, "Is a women's college for you?" Teen Voices, Summer 2003

 

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR NEW CAMPUS CENTER

"We want to create a space where it is perfectly acceptable to just relax."
- Campus Center Director Dawn Mays-Floyd, "$23 million campus center to open Monday at Smith," Republican, August 23, 2003

"Smith College's new campus center is a splendid example of the type [modern student center], a sinuous viaduct with glazed walls and a skylight along its meandering spine. It is not so much a building as a roofed-over street. But that is precisely what its architects intended."
- "Forget Classrooms: How Big is the Atrium in the New Student Center"? Chronicle of Higher Education, July 11, 2003

 

SUMMER: THE LEARING NEVER STOPS

"It's not the 'real world' and that's what makes it so good. Because if the girls are only exposed to the 'real world' the problem is most of them will never go on into engineering or science."
- Director of Educational Outreach Gail Scordilis, "Hot New Girls' Camps Specialize in Academics," Women's E-News, August 25, 2003

"What a wonderful program. [The Smith-Northampton Summer School] has given our children a whole new perspective. They're all thinking about going to college."
- Gerena Community School (Springfield) Principal Peter Levanos, "Summer a learning experience," Republican, August 25, 2003

"We try to give them all the tools they'll need so that when they leave here they can read the molecular biological literature, set up their labs to do experiments right away and collaborate with other scientists."
- Gates Professor of Biology Steven Williams, "Researchers go to science 'boot camp,'" Boston Herald, August 10, 2003

"We didn't do much science in fourth grade, so I wanted to catch up. It's been really fun."
- Smith-Northampton Summer School Student Alexa Pascucci, "One cool summer school," Daily Hampshire Gazette, July 31, 2003

"These girls do well in math and science in high school. The issue is whether they decide to study these topics in college. We want to provide them with the opportunities to explore their interests further."
- Director of Educational Outreach Gail Scordilis, "Smith gives H.S. girls a taste of college science," Mass High Tech, July 21, 2003

 

SOCIAL WORK GRADS CONFRONT COMPLEX TIMES

"This is good work ­ with a capital G."
- Ken Jaeger, SSW '03, "World events shape social work," Republican, August 18, 2003

"There is something about this war in particular that has been very difficult. Military people are trying to understand why they are there, why they are going and then dealing with the uncertainties, let alone the death that happens around them."
- Dean of the School for Social Work Carolyn Jacobs, "Social work grads girded for vets of Iraq war," Daily Hampshire Gazette, August 12, 2003

 

FINANCIAL EDUCATION CONTINUES TO MAKE NEWS

"For too long women have been told not to worry about money, that 'someone else will take care of all that.' The reality is that you are not truly independent until and unless you are financially independent. Financial matters are not something to be left to others."
- Associate Professor of Economics Mahnaz Mahdavi, "Colleges Train Students to Press for Equal Wages," Women's E-News, August 15, 2003

"That the new student investment club at Smith College turned $100,000 into $111,647 over just eight months cut no ice with the acerbic John Kenneth Galbraith, retired Harvard economics professor. Galbraith, whose wife attended Smith and who has a Smith honorary degree, wrote in to a campus newsletter to scold the students--who, puzzled Smith professors note, produced an annualized total return of 17.5%, versus 2% for the market. 'There is nothing reliable to be learned about making money,' Galbraith declared in his letter. 'If there were, study would be intense and everyone with a positive IQ would be rich.'
- "Then why are they rich?", Forbes, July 21, 2003

"Financial education at the college level is essential for securing a young adult's financial future. [M]any new college students are unprepared for the financial realities that they face once they leave home. Furthermore, evidence shows that many of today's college students will continue to struggle with their finances throughout their lives."
- Associate Professor of Economics Mahnaz Mahdavi, "Personal finance in the classroom," New York Times, July 6, 2003

 

FACULTY AND STAFF OFFER EXPERTISE

"We do it because it is an example of the kind of critical reading that we hope students will engage in at college."
- Associate Dean of the College Tom Riddell, "Freshmen reading the same books," Republican, August 26, 2003

"Perfectionistic kids get caught in a vicious cycle. When approaching a task or project, they feel less able to succeed, get anxious and then evaluate their performance more negatively than their non-perfectionistic peers."
- Associate Professor of Psychology Patricia DiBartolo, "Good Students Get the Jitters, Too," Atlanta Journal-Constitution," August 19, 2003

"You can preach all you want about the value of math and science and about the important role of engineers in our society, but if kids don't see the discovery in it ­ and the fun ­ they're going to tune you out."
- Picker Engineering Program Director and Professor Domenico Grasso, "Toy competition showcases young engineers' creativity," Boston Herald, August 10, 2003

"There's a sense among larger cities that they have some leverage they didn't use historically."
-Robert A. Woods Professor of Economics Andrew Zimbalist, "Montreal Expos: No Place to Call Home Plate," Wall Street Journal, August 7, 2003

"There's only so much income out there for sports leagues, and the existing ones are using up all the corporate and high-income dollars."
-Robert A. Woods Professor of Economics Andrew Zimbalist, "Lacrosse Pushes West, Using NHL Playbook," Los Angeles Times, August 4, 2003

"People manage to go on with their lives. They have quite a capacity to adjust. The average Israeli citizen tries to focus very, very hard on his job, children, family life, on what is normal."
-Morningstar Professor in Jewish Studies Donna Robinson Divine, "Israel visit a primer for Smith prof," Daily Hampshire Gazette, July 31, 2003

"I've always been appalled by the way sociologists write. It always seemed to me that you could say profound things in straightforward ways. It doesn't have to be in convoluted jargon."
- Sophia Smith Professor of Sociology and Anthropology Peter Rose, "Postings from a very public professor," Daily Hampshire Gazette, July 23, 2003

"It's troubling, because first of all the importance and nature of the job don't justify those kind of salaries. And secondly it's troubling because of the message that it sends to students about the priorities and values of the university. If an athletic director gets $500,000 and the highest-paid professor gets $150,000, that's saying something about the way the college values the services."
-Robert A. Woods Professor of Economics Andrew Zimbalist, "Athletic directors' salaries are keeping pace with ever-rising stakes in major college sports," Louisville Courier-Journal, July 13, 2003

"There are very few fields of economic research that produce unanimous agreement. Yet every independent economic analysis of the impact of stadiums has found no predictable positive effect on output or employment. Some studies have even concluded that there is a possibly negative impact."
-Robert A. Woods Professor of Economics Andrew Zimbalist, "Baseball's Stadium Shakedown," Washington Post, July 13, 2003

"It's good to know we're getting this stuff out to people who need it. We work hard to make sure it doesn't end up in the dump."
- Grounds Supervisor Bob Dombkowski, "Loads of leftovers: When the students go home it's time for a tag sale," Daily Hampshire Gazette, July 5 ­ 6, 2003

 

DISCOVERING THE MUSEUM AND FINE ARTS CENTER

"The new fine arts center is really two buildings side by side, linked by a glass-roofed atrium. On one side is an art museum with a terrific collection, especially strong in American painting of the 19th century. On the other side is Smith's teaching facility for the arts, with classrooms, studio spaces for every kind of art, and a major arts library."
- "Smith's fine arts center has a design that builds on the old but holds water," Boston Globe, August 24, 2003

"One of the first things museum visitors at the Smith College Museum of Art ask is where the bathrooms are located. That's because two of the restrooms there, now part of the permanent collection, were created by artists Sandy Skoglund and Ellen Driscoll."
- "Art & Money," Wall Street Journal, August 22, 2003

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Archive:
 
June 30, 2003
May 28, 2003
April 15, 2003
February 5, 2003
December 11, 2002
October 31, 2002
September 26, 2002
August 28, 2002
June 17, 2002
April 18, 2002
March 21, 2002
February 28, 2002
January 31, 2002
November 28, 2001
November 2, 2001
October 17, 2001
September 21, 2001
September 5, 2001
August 10, 2001
Aug. 3, 2001
June, 2001
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December, 2000
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September, 2000
August, 2000
June/July 2000
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April, 2000
March / February, 2000
January, 2000 / December, 1999
November, 1999
October, 1999
September, 1999
August, 1999

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