Our Club

Smith in Spain—A Brief History

Background

Although officially our Club is somewhat of a fledgling organization, our sentimental roots go back to before the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939): to the first groups of young women who crossed the ocean to spend their junior year abroad in Madrid. They were pioneers. So, too, were the faculty members who accompanied them—Ruth Lee Kennedy, Katherine Whitmore…. The story of all these women who lived, studied, and taught in Spain at that time, and for decades thereafter, is a fascinating one, waiting to be told. It is partly in their honor that we have named our club Smith in Spain.

A few of our more venerable members—from graduating classes of the mid 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s—studied at Smith with Miss Kennedy and Mrs. Whitmore, who by that time had voluntarily relinquished to faculty members younger than them the job of shepherding groups of undergraduates to Spain. A number of us experienced life in Spain during the Franco regime (1939-1975); others have only known the country since it has been a constitutional monarchy.

As opposed to some of our more recent grads, who find themselves in Spain for a myriad of personal and professional reasons (how Smith, and the world, have changed in the last half-century!), the founding mothers of our club are expats, most (but not all) of whom married Spaniards and stayed. More recent grads have diverse, and fascinating, stories of their own to share. When we get together, a minimum of twice a year, we—Americans and Spaniards alike—are united by the common experience of having attended Smith.

From October 2006 through December 2009

It was precisely in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the founding, in 1931, of the Smith College Junior Year Abroad Program in Spain that we held our first official gathering, at the Hotel Wellington in March 2006. Our speaker was Prof. Nancy Sternbach of the Department of Spanish & Portuguese, at that time Resident Director of the PRESHCO Study Abroad Consortium in Córdoba (to which Smith belongs). Some of us already knew one another; others were delighted to make new friends. We decided to form a Group—prior to gaining recognition as a full-fledged Club—, and to meet at least twice a year.

Our Group was officially launched when President Carol Christ visited Madrid in October 2006, to meet formally and informally with alumnae and to unveil a bronze plaque we had recently installed on a wall of the former Smith College classroom at the International Institute, at Miguel Ángel 8, to commemorate the anniversary of the erstwhile Smith JYA Program in Spain.

Since spring 2007 we have held our twice-yearly gatherings in the conference room of the same Instituto Internacional, whose director, Pilar Piñón, has carried out extensive independent research on Smith College, Women’s Education in Spain and the International Institute in the archives of the College Library. (Since 1991 the Instituto, in conjunction with the Fulbright Program in Spain, has offered three annual travel fellowships named after Prof. Kennedy—the Becas Ruth Lee Kennedy—to Spanish women with an M.A. or Ph.D. interested in furthering their studies in the United States.) Our talks and round-table discussions, many of them related to Smith, have included personal testimonies, reports of meetings of Smith in Europe, which are held in different cities every two years (in the year 2000 it was in Madrid), information regarding the department of Spanish and the college in general, and—on the occasion of the screening of the film Julie and Julia—a commemoration of the life and works of Julia Child, ’34.

Recent Meetings: From Spring 2010 to the present

  • · The April 2010 meeting of our by-then full-fledged Club was dedicated to the memory of two recently-deceased members of the Department of Spanish & Portuguese, Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce and Erna Berndt Kelley, whom many of us had had as teachers. That year’s Resident Director of the PRESHCO consortium, Esteban Monserrate, traveled from Córdoba to Madrid to attend our homage.
  • · In November of that year, we were all invited by the Smith College Alumnae Association to a reception at the Palace Hotel in Madrid to meet with participants, and Professor Nancy Sternbach, who had returned from a trip, sponsored by the Association’s Travel Program, to Seville, Córdoba, and Granada. All of us found it an opportunity for an interesting exchange of ideas.
  • · In June 2011 a new addition to our club, Roberta Matthews, ’65, who recently retired as provost at Brooklyn College, CUNY, spoke to us about the study of languages other than English within the context of US universities today from an administrative perspective, a topic we all found most interesting.
  • · In November 2011 Tracy Eubank, ’65 and Carolyn Richmond, ’60 presented our new web page to a meeting attended by over twenty members and guests at the International Institute.
  • · In May 2012 we held a planning session and party (we’re especially good at the latter).
  • · In October 2012 Kim Albright, Director of International Advancement at Smith, spoke to us about recent developments at the college.
  • · In April 2013 five members of our club participated in a round table discussion about what it has been like for them to live in Spain.
  • · In May 2013 we held a reception for the Smith Friends Abroad Group, led by faculty members Ellen Kaplan  and Estela Harretche, at the International Institute (where we usually hold all our meetings).
  • We invite everyone to visit our page.

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All our meetings are informal and highly participatory. As attested to by the photographs, we enjoy refreshments featuring products of the country in which we live. Occasionally we extend our meetings with a tapa session in a nearby bar/café. We welcome any Smith grads who might find themselves in town.

Club Objectives, Executive Committee, and Other Information

Among our club’s objectives are the following:

  • Foment relationships between individuals in Spain who have studied or worked at Smith College.
  • Serve as a resource for women interested in attending Smith.
  • Participate in the global network of Smith women, with special attention to Europe.

Rather than a slate of officers we have an Executive Committee comprised of the following alumnae*:

  • · Tracy Eubank, ’65
  • · Sheila Klaiber, ’68
  • · Ingrid Perdew, ’65
  • · Carolyn Richmond, ’60

*It should be noted that in Spain married women generally retain their maiden names.

Members of Smith in Spain are also kept informed, via the internet, about events in Madrid open to the public that are sponsored by clubs and organizations representing other US colleges, universities, and educational organizations.

Please note: what we’ve described is what there is. Unfortunately, Smith in Spain has neither an office, nor a secretary. We welcome comments, etc., at our e-mail address (see Contact).