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Smith College

Smith College (Northampton, MA)

www.smith.edu

Identity Statement:

Smith College has provided women of high ability and promise an education of uncompromising quality. A world-class faculty of scholars are fully engaged with their students intellectual development, and an open curriculum encourages each student to explore many fields of knowledge. Mentors for scholarship, leadership and service, across all spectrums of endeavor, allow Smith students to observe different models of achievement, then set their own course with conviction.

As the nation's largest liberal arts college for women, Smith offers a unique breadth of resources. Outstanding academic facilities, on a New England campus noted for its beauty, are complemented by a supportive housing system that fosters self-reliance and builds life-long friendships.

The Liberal Arts: No Distributive Requirements

In the 19th century the liberal arts were characterized as providing "the discipline and furniture of the mind: expanding its powers, and storing it with knowledge," to which was added, "The former of these is, perhaps, the more important of the two." At many liberal arts colleges today this ideal is understood as implying both breadth and depth in each student's course of studies, as well as the acquisition of crucial skills in writing, public speaking and quantitative reasoning.
From its founding in 1871 Smith has taken a progressive, expansive and student-oriented view of its role as a liberal arts college. To the studies of the humanities and sciences the college early added courses in art and music, a substantial innovation for its time. In the same spirit the faculty has continued to integrate the new and the old, respecting all the while the individual needs of, and differences among, its students. As an early dean of the faculty wrote, it "is always the problem of education, to secure the proper amount of system and the due proportion of individual liberty, to give discipline to the impulsive and wayward and largeness of opportunity to those who will make good use of it.

In the spirit of "individual liberty [and] largeness of opportunity" Smith College has since 1970 had no distribution requirements for graduation. In the interest of "discipline" each student must complete a major, to give depth to her studies, while to guarantee breadth she must take at least 64 credits outside the department or program of her major. As for "system," the college assigns each beginning student a faculty member as academic adviser; each student later chooses a major adviser. Students, in consultation with their advisers, are expected to select a curriculum that has both breadth and depth, engages with cultures other than their own, and develops critical skills in writing, public speaking, and quantitative reasoning. 128 credit hours to graduate.

Graduation Requirements:

128 credit hours total; 64 in major

Freshman Year:  One writing intensive course

Faculty Adviser, choose a curriculum of breadth and depth, engage other cultures


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