Smith College
Since its founding in 1871, Smith College has provided women of high ability and promise an education of uncompromising quality. A world-class faculty of scholars are fully engaged with their students’ intellectual development, and an open curriculum encourages each student to explore many fields of knowledge. Mentors for scholarship, leadership and service, across all spectrums of endeavor, allow Smith students to observe different models of achievement, then set their own course with conviction.
The college was chartered in 1871 by a bequest of Sophia Smith and opened its doors in 1875 with 14 students and six faculty. When she inherited, at age 65, a fortune from her father, Smith decided that leaving her inheritance to found a women’s college was the best way for her to fulfill the moral obligation she expressed in her will: “I hereby make the following provisions for the establishment and maintenance of an Institution for the higher education of young women, with the design to furnish for my own sex means and facilities for education equal to those which are afforded now in our colleges to young men.” By 1915–16 the student enrollment was 1,724 and the faculty numbered 163.
Smith has been led by 10 presidents and two acting presidents. For the 1975 centennial, the college inaugurated its first woman president, Jill Ker Conway (Elizabeth Cutter Morrow was the first actual president of Smith College and the first female head of a college in the USA, she did not use the title of president), who came to Smith from Australia by way of Harvard and the University of Toronto. Since President Conway’s term, all Smith presidents have been women, with the exception of John M. Connolly’s one-year term as acting president in the interim after President Simmons left to lead Brown University.
Smith College has 285 professors in 41 academic departments and programs, for a faculty:student ratio of 1:9. It is the first and only women’s college in the United States to grant its own undergraduate degrees in engineering. The Picker Engineering Program offers a single ABET accredited Bachelor of Science in engineering science, combining the fundamentals of multiple engineering disciplines. Picker students who maintain an overall GPA of 3.5 and a GPA of 3.5 within the major are automatically admitted to graduate study in engineering at Dartmouth College, Johns Hopkins University, Tufts University, and the University of Michigan.
Courses Offered
Undergraduate programs
- Afro-American Studies
- American Studies
- Anthropology
- Architecture
- Art: History
- Art: Studio
- Astronomy
- Biochemistry
- Biological Sciences
- Chemistry
- Classical Studies
- Classics
- Comparative Literature
- Computer Science
- Dance
- East Asian Languages and Cultures
- East Asian Studies
- Economics
- Education and Child Study
- Engineering
- English Language and Literature
- Environmental Science and Policy
- Film Studies
- French Studies
- Geosciences
- German Studies
- Government
- Greek
- History
- Italian Language and Literature
- Italian Studies
- Jewish Studies
- Latin
- Latin American and Latino/a Studies
- Mathematics
- Medieval Studies
- Music
- Neuroscience
- Philosophy
- Physics
- Portuguese-Brazilian Studies
- Psychology
- Religion
- Russian Civilization
- Russian Literature
- Sociology
- Spanish
- Theatre
- Women and Gender Studie
Graduate Programs
- Master of Arts in Teaching
- Master of Education of the Deaf
- Master of Fine Arts in Dance
- Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting
- Master of Science in Biological Sciences
- Master of Science in Exercise and Sport Studies
- Cooperative Ph.D. Program
- Master/Ph.D. of Social Work
Centers
- Center for Community Collaboration
- Center for the Environment, Ecological Design and Sustainability
- Center for Work and Life
- Global Studies Center
Contact Details
Smith College
Northampton,
Massachusetts 01063
(413) 584-2700
Official Website: http://www.smith.edu/
