Setting a Smith "Gold" Standard
Throughout the year, the high school students and their
parents who arrive on campus to check out Smith College are inevitably met by Gold
Key Guides. Often one of the first Smith representatives a prospective student will
meet, student guides play a significant role in the admission process. But that's
nothing new.
Student guides have provided campus tours since the
early days of the 20th century. They adopted the name Gold Key Guides in 1947 and,
four years later, became a collegewide association. Since that time, the guides have
been unpaid. The information they provide has always been unscripted.
The following comments were gathered from the writings
and comments of Smith student guides themselves over the past 70 years.
1939 "The guest, under the competent
guidance of one of our corps, receives without too much effort on his or her part
a quite complete and fair picture of Smith, and, being with a student, feels a personal
contact with the college, besides picking up bits of information which no poring
through catalogues would yield."
1955 "Functioning as an interpreter,
the guide must speak on many planes. Each family member must be dealt with individually,"
observed Sally Wilcox '55, in a 1955 edition of the Smith Alumnae Quarterly.
"More than anyone else, they want their guest to realize what all this can mean to
her."
1966 "The Admissions Office does not encourage
Gold Key members to present a completely rosy and gung-ho picture of Smith,
nor to overwhelm visitors with facts and statistics."
1939 "Fathers, poor men...must
continually be left sitting on doorsteps. Either the girl wants to look at bedrooms
and father has to wait in the living room; or she just must have a look at the locker
rooms, so father spends a painful five minutes on the steps of Scott Gymnasium, tortured
by the discordant sounds floating out of the practice rooms in Sage."
1939 "One of our guides was showing
a father around campus. He gradually got so much into the swing of things that he
demanded to be taken to 'the place where all the college girls go.' Our guide led
him obediently to Toto's, where he gleefully drank a lemon Coke."
1955 "Father of 'the Brain' wants
to know the mechanics of the heating system. At what exact temperature does the sprinkler
system burst forth into geyser-like fountains? Is the Treasurer's Office
a responsible and efficient place into which he can safely funnel his funds?"
1964 "Fathers are the generous ones
and they are the ones, too, who are apt to have firm ideas about how to appraise
what they see.... An occasional father hovers over the card catalogue to make his
own judgment of the library," according to a 1964 Smith Alumnae Quarterly article
that quoted five guides: Harriet Campell '66, Mary Louise Agemian '64, Signe Anderson
'64, Kathryn Amey '65 and Sally Beck '66.
1939 "People never fail to be impressed
by the atmosphere of the Browsing Room, and the quiet which reigns in the stacks
and reading rooms -- goodness knows what they expect in a library!"
1964 "How do you calm the prospective student's
doubts about the stamina Smith requires when she finds a limp scholar fast asleep
on a couch in the Browsing Room?"
1966 "Visitors are taken through the
library and have disturbed quiet study there."
1939 "The new system of having
guides always in College Hall ready to show any guests the Smith campus is really
far superior to the former one of frantically calling up house after house to find
someone....Now the guide is right there waiting."
1939 "Each visitor usually claims that he
wishes to inspect everything -- which means a general tour of the campus, lasting
approximately an hour. One family, however, did see everything -- our guide was
with them from 11 in the morning to 5 that afternoon."
1955 "Each guide is assigned two hours a
week when she is either on duty in the telephone operator's cubicle in College
Hall, or on call at her house."
2007 "With Moodle it is much easier
for us to coordinate our commitments to Gold Key. This social forum is a really great
way for us all to stay in contact. If you need to switch tour times for a week, post
it here. If you have a sudden change in schedule and need someone to cover your special
event, post it and one of our great guides will probably be able to help you out."
2008 "This is a very busy week of overnights
(visits from prospective students). Make sure to get your air-beds back right
away. Every night is booked."
1939 "There are always fantastic ideas
about Smith to set straight...the doting parent who wanted to know how often the
bus ran between the Quad and Seelye Hall!"
1955 "The prospective student herself...has
a few inscrutable questions of her own. They may be whispered while parental attention
is elsewhere. Should she have a roommate? Do you know, and you usually don't, the
boy next door who goes to Amherst?"
1964 "Often we are asked a great many personal
questions from 'What are you going to do when you graduate?,' to 'Do
you have a date for tonight?'"
1972 "This year's questions included: 'What
is your reaction to the general social life at Smith, what are you most dissatisfied
with at Smith and if you had only 10 minutes, where would you take a girl on a tour?'"
1939 "All are paid a retaining
fee by the college, besides an hourly rate when guiding."
1955 "The organization began as a service
to the College and is of just as much value to the guides themselves."
1964 "The rewards of the job are partly
the pleasure of coming in contact with people of many sorts and interests, and partly
the perspective lent to familiar things by looking at them through the eyes of strangers."
1966 "In addition to the pleasure of meeting
and talking to new people, Gold Key members each year enjoy dessert at the Mendenhall's
and an afternoon tea in the fall."
2008 "I have had a sudden change in plans
and I'm desperate to switch with anyone with a later time slot this Saturday...
If you can switch, I will buy you Herrell's after I give my tour (or whenever
you want)."
1964 "Others, numbed by a shopping
tour of countless colleges, are utterly bewildered, like one rapturous individual
who forgot what campus she was on and said: 'I love it; it's too marvelous!
Now I know Wellesley is where I want to come!'"
Material for this article was compiled by Kristen
Cole, Smith media relations director, with contributions from Nanci Young, Smith
College archivist, and Sidnie Davis '08.
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