The Campus & Northampton
The Smith campus is a beautiful natural setting that is as impressive as our academic environment. Tree-lined paths wind past more than 100 distinctive buildings where you’ll live, learn, work, make friends and explore your passions. Conduct meaningful research in the Center for Molecular Biology, sing on stage at Sweeney Concert Hall, play tennis on the indoor courts at the Ainsworth sports complex or discover the 240 acres of field and forest at the college’s nearby MacLeish Field Station. You can also go beyond the Grécourt Gates into bustling downtown Northampton or hop on a bus to a class, lecture or social event at the other local campuses in the Five College consortium.
A Sense of Place
Smith’s campus is an environment where simple physical beauty—the flaming hues of New England’s fall, the architecture of the buildings, seasonal colors reflected in Paradise Pond—is a constant source of pleasure. Every season in New England has a mood, and each brings its own activities: fall hikes in the nearby Holyoke Range; winter skating, snowshoeing and skiing; spring rowing and picnics or studying outdoors under a willow tree. At Smith, you’ll quickly acquire a distinct sense of place.
Whether your passion is biology or ballet, you’ll find that the sophisticated facilities and equipment at Smith are among the best available.
Smith’s library system rivals those of larger colleges with its extensive collections of books, periodicals, digital resources, microforms, maps, scores, recordings, rare books, archives and manuscripts.
The Clark Science Center is a multibuilding complex of teaching and research laboratories and classrooms, equipped with confocal, scanning and transmission electron microscopes; a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer; lasers; reflecting and refracting telescopes; and a cosmic-ray detection facility.
The Brown Fine Arts Center is the home of Smith’s renowned Museum of Art, art department and art library. Considered one of the finest college art museums in the country, the museum is known for its distinguished collection of more than 20,000 objects from all periods and cultures.
The Mendenhall Center for the Performing Arts houses outstanding theater, dance and music facilities. It includes Theatre 14, with seating for 450 and a proscenium stage served by large fly and wing spaces, and two concert spaces: the 629-seat Sweeney Concert Hall and Earle Recital Hall, a smaller, more intimate venue.
Bulb Show
Every year, a spectacular array of blossoming crocuses, hyacinths, narcissi, irises, lilies and tulips provides an early glimpse of spring at Lyman Conservatory. The Spring Bulb Show is a Smith tradition dating back to the early 1900s.
