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SMITH IN THE NEWS
SPOTLIGHT SHINES ON COMMENCEMENT AND REUNION "At Smith College, 63 seniors
graduated with departmental honors after completing theses, about
a third of them in the sciences. Among the titles were 'Growth
Bands in Belizean Patch Reef Corals: Their Use as Paleoclimate
Indicators' in geology; 'Resisting Patriarchy by Resisting Occupation:
The Political Liberation of Algerian and Palestinian Women' in
government; 'Culture, Contradiction and Chocolate: A History
and Analysis of Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory" in American Studies; and 'The Shifting Debate Over
Education and Religion in American Schools' in religion and biblical
literature." "Five years ago, I came up [to
Smith] by myself. This year, I had to have a driver." "Nothing bothered me more when
I was Secretary of State than the lack of resources we are prepared
to invest in human development. I was supposed to be the world's
most powerful woman and yet when I saw girls and boys in refugee
camps who had survived exploitation and war, I was all too often
unable to promise them hope." "Perhaps one of you will develop
a new foreign policy doctrine that spells out America's appropriate
global role somewhere between an isolationism shunning
the problems of the world and a neo-imperialism scaring the dickens
out of friends and foes alike." "I am incredibly proud of America.
I believe in the goodness of our power and in the uplifting power
of our ideals." I knew that I didn't want to [work
as a campus chef] for the rest of my life. I wanted a whole lot
more." "Officials at Smith College in
Northampton, Mass., are telling families that video and photos
of their daughters receiving diplomas will be available if they
can't make the ceremony."
MUSEUM REOPENS TO GREAT ACCLAIM "Headlining a tour of the regional
art scene is the spectacular Smith College Museum of Art, which
has been closed and under renovation for three long and lonely
years. Expanded to include a third floor and enlarged gallery
space, the building, while retaining the sleek elegance that
has always been its distinguishing style, is notably different." "The ribbon has been cut, the
galas have been held and no less than seven exhibitions are open
for viewing. After a two-year shutdown for its $35 million makeover,
the art museum at Smith College is up and running again." "After two years under wraps,
Smith College's Brown Fine Arts center emerged this week from
its $35 million cocoon to reveal the beauty within. Punctuated
by a large picture window overlooking the campus, the sky-lit
space of the renovated museum is a stunning and welcome addition
to a city that now seems even a little closer to paradise." "This museum enriches our lives
at a time when we are having to tighten our belts." "This building is world-class." "Smith is an excellent place to
learn about art and art history, largely because of the museum
and the opportunities it affords to see great works of art live." "The idea is that every
aspect of the museum will be an artistic experience." "The new museum offers an extra
floor of galleries, including 'a new third floor that didn't
exist before,' [Museum Director Suzannah] Fabing said. ''It's
a beautiful, sky-lit space and has a fabulous picture window
overlooking the campus.'" " There may be no greater gift
than Smith's renovated and expended Museum of Art." "It's such a joy to have [the
works of art] up. I've missed them so much." "You know you've got something
when workmen who've seen everything are coming in to check the
progress [of the artist-designed restrooms]. Now that they're
finished, they've been shy about using them. We will be giving
tours of the restrooms at scheduled intervals but people
should know they are also to be used." "For a long time, college museums
saw their mission as serving only their students. That's changed." "The whole museum is practically
new. They took it down to the studs; everything's been redone."
SMITH ENGINEERS REFLECT ON NASA FLIGHT "I will never forget the incredible
yet indescribable feeling of my first zero-g parabola. It is
a rush that only a handful of people on this planet get to experience,
a thrill that even the world's greatest roller-coasters cannot
provide." "I really like how we've taken
this whole project from start to finish, from assembling the
application to acquiring data to doing background research. The
research experience has been invaluable."
COLLEGE TO HOST INTERNATIONAL WOOLF CONFERENCE "The Woolf scholars are going
to go wild." "Virginia Woolf's books are about
the richness of inner life. There's not a lot of action in them.
When Mrs. Dalloway acts, she buys flowers. For me, what's great
about "Mrs. Dalloway" is the poetry of the language.
It's so beautiful and so rich."
CRITICS PRAISE ZIMBALIST BASEBALL BOOK "These days a typical owner will
rake in bog money, claim he's nearly broke and then threaten
to move unless his host city subsidizes a new stadium at taxpayer
expense. If you think this is an exaggeration, read Zimbalist's
brilliantly researched study on the economics of the game." "Zimbalist, the Robert A. Woods
Professor of Economics at Smith College, toys with such far-out
concepts as the abolition of antitrust restrictions on baseball.
Taken literally, without antitrust restrictions, ball clubs would
presumably be free to locate wherever they wished. 'If monopoly
sports leagues did not artificially regulate the number and locations
of franchises,' he writes, 'then markets would be filled according
to demand.'" "Zimbalist presents an analysis
of baseball's problems and a number of suggestions for addressing
them, but since the players' union maintains that the game is
flush and the owners swear they're essentially running it as
a nonprofit public service, hard numbers and common sense are
probably wasted in this arena." "Where Bud Selig and Company would
have you believe that baseball is losing millions, "May
the Best Team Win" exposes the chicanery the bigwigs use
to make their hollow claims." "In my view, baseball needs to
be subject to judicial review. If baseball engages in restraints
of trade that hurt the consumer, that hurt certain cities, that
hurt the public in various ways, the public should have judicial
recourse." "Fans can put up with their team
finishing outside of the competitive circuit for a year or two,
but if it keeps on happening, fans begin to separate from their
teams." "...the real issue is that the
vast majority of the teams that are in the bottom half-or even
the bottom two-thirds-of payrolls don't even have a chance to
win every year. And it's OK if for some years the team doesn't
win, but when it happens year after year, then the fans begin
to lose interest. It's not an accident that last year 20 out
of the 30 baseball teams had a decline in attendance." "'May the Best Team Win' combines
the precision of an academic with the passion of a fan."
FINANCING COLLEGE "This year at Smith College in
Massachusetts, the cost of handling freshman appeals alone jumped
five-fold, and Smith's aid budget will rise by 17 percent next
year." "Financial aid requests have doubled
at Kenyon College in Ohio and Smith College in Massachusetts,
and they have increased by as much as 50 percent at Skidmore
College in upstate New York and at the University of Michigan." "A year at Florida's Miami-Dade
Community College for an in-state student averages $8,816. If
a student does well enough to transfer to Smith College in Massachusetts
a school that has an established relationship with Miami-Dade
a full year toward a Smith degree could be purchased for
$26,896 less than it would have cost otherwise."
FACULTY VOICES IN THE NEWS "The biggest single problem is
mistaken expectations. The horror stories primarily have to do
with supervisors who expected their interns to be servants." "It's not a coincidence that all
this started after the stock market collapse, which hurt all
those companies and their ability to get financing." "Smith students are very savvy
about the forces acting on them. They think of 'style' as something
that's theirs and they're wary of the fashion industry trying
to co-opt it and market it back to them." "It's hard for police officers
to acknowledge vulnerability. But it's healthy. That's how people
get past it. If you don't acknowledge it, it doesn't go away
and it gets displaced." "Because of Title IX, women in
the business world today who are in their 30s had the chance
to compete from Little League all the way through college. But
talk to women in their 50s and they say, 'I never had that chance.
I was taught how to run, throw and jump but not how to be on
a team." "The war makes it very difficult
for the Moroccan government to negotiate with the U.S." "The basic stance [of prayer]
is one of humility. And it usually involves a request of some
kind, but also can just be effort to come into a deeper relationship
with the divine." "The game is strong enough and
deeply embedded in the culture, so baseball can get away with
some of these dalliances, but it doesn't help the sport in the
long run." "While Iraq is presently enduring
a punishing and spectacularly visible military assault, the government
of Sudan is on the verge of being quietly rewarded at the UN's
annual Human Rights Convention in Geneva with a human rights
'upgrade.'"
STUDENT VOICES IN THE NEWS "Smith College's Raheli Millman,
editor of the school's weekly Sophian, brings stylish-yet-affordable
fashion to campus. 'I found it challenging to reconcile my fashion
interests with my social awareness,' she says. 'So we attempt
to close the gap between fashion and activism, encouraging DIY
projects such as turning a pillowcase into a skirt.' As a result,
you won't get reports from Seventh Avenue here. Instead, Millman
focuses on 'the gap between the magazines and our closets, making
a fashion statement that Smith students can relate to.'" |
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