Smith College Enews - Notes from Paradise

NEWS FROM SMITH COLLEGE :: AUGUST 31, 2016


			The Tale Behind Smith’s Summer Reading Selection

			Ruth Ozeki ’80, award-winning author and Smith’s Elizabeth Drew Professor of English Language and Literature, will read from her imaginative novel A Tale for the Time Being on Sept. 5. The book, a finalist for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, was this year's summer reading choice at Smith.


Closing the Gender Gap with Smithies at NASA	Student Creates Digital Portal To Campus Trees	Aditi Desai ’05’s Ode to Collards Up for Best Food Video



Erika Rodriguez '06, a research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in California, was eager to bring more women to her workplace. So she created internships for 10 Smithies this summer. Rodriguez said her NASA co-workers responded enthusiastically to the idea of supervising Smith students at the research center.	Taz Mueller ’18 has created a digital portal containing detailed historical and biological information about important campus trees. “We’ve got to preserve our arboretum,” says Mueller, who was a participant in Smith's Summer Research Fellowship program. She will continue working on the portal in an independent study this fall and hopes to launch it later in the year.	The Culture of Collards, a video by Aditi Desai ’05, is a finalist for SAVEUR magazine’s best food video award. Collard greens represent a part of African American cultural history. Desai is among a new generation of farmers and culinary historians working to preserve and share their cultural heritage.

SSW Lays Out Action Plan

In an August 29 letter, School for Social Work Dean Marianne Yoshioka addresses a series of attributed and unattributed letters that circulated in the SSW community and the media, outlining an action plan for inclusion, diversity, equity and civil discourse.

College Welcomes New Faculty

Eighteen new full-time faculty members will teach at Smith this coming year on subjects ranging from Africana studies to statistical and data sciences.

Steinem Inspires Award-Winning Girl Scout

Emma Guyette ’20 has always been inspired by Gloria Steinem ’56's work to make the world a better place. It’s a lesson Guyette has put into action in her own way, designing a CPR training program for 250 people in her rural hometown in Franklin County, Mass., where it can take as long as 45 minutes for an ambulance to arrive at the scene of an emergency. Guyette’s effort recently earned her the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest achievement in Girl Scouting.