Diversity & Inclusion

As a central element of its commitment to excellence, Smith College seeks to provide an environment that fosters the recruitment and success of a diverse student, faculty, and staff community.

Diversity Principles

Power and privilege influence access to opportunities and resources, according to distinctions among people based on race, age, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, social class, religion, and disability. Within any given community, people will have multiple and complex social identities that both connect them to and differentiate them from others.

Valuing diversity requires not simply an acknowledgement of differences, but a commitment to overcoming inequities and fostering a hospitable and respectful community.

Diversity Goals

Diversity initiatives at the college have three goals:

1. to enable all to recognize and learn about the varied traditions, backgrounds, and capacities that members of the community bring to the college, and to recognize that each member has something to teach and something to learn;
2. to foster critical thought about equality, inequality, power, and privilege in society;
3. and, finally, to reduce (as much as is possible) inequalities in the college community that are based on such differences.

See the Code of Conduct - Fair Employment Practices and Diversity for more information.