Smith Ranks the Hottest

Smith and Northampton rank high this week...
Newsweek came out with the its Top 25 Hottest Universities list in the most recent addition and Smith came in as the hottest women's college. Newsweek characterizes the ranking as, "Instead of a numerical ranking, our list is a quick but colorful snapshot of today's most interesting schools. We've talked to a range of experts—admissions officials, educational consultants, students, parents, and college and university leaders—in making our selections. We've been particularly influenced by the views of high-school counselors, the people most in tune with what matters to the latest wave of college applicants."

Hottest Women's College
Smith College, Northampton, Mass.
With 2,800 students, Smith is the nation's largest women's college, and the first to start an engineering program. It is part of the Five Colleges consortium with nearby Mount Holyoke, Amherst, Hampshire and UMass Amherst. The facilities, particularly the cottage-style houses where students live in groups of 13 to 80, are so attractive that visitors originally preferring a coed college often change their minds. "Smith kind of won me over," says Katie Green, who thought she would go to a school with men. "When else in your life can you get the experience of being surrounded by smart, motivated young women who really care about what they're doing?"

Also making a best of list is Northampton. Smartertravel.com has ranked Northampton as one of 5 perfect college towns.

Want to avoid the hustle and bustle of Boston college life? Look no further than Northampton, a small New England city in the Berkshire foothills surrounded by no less than five colleges. The downtown area is filled with ma-and-pa-owned boutiques, coffee houses, hip restaurants, and theaters housed in historical buildings. Home to Smith College, the nation's largest liberal arts college for women, this funky little town is well-known for its art—many galleries feature local artists' work—and for its thriving gay and lesbian counter-culture scene.

In nearby Amherst, the University of Massachusetts Amherst is the top choice for more than 25,000 undergraduate and graduate students, and hosts some major musical acts. These two colleges, plus the others in the area, provide the perfect backdrop for a formal education in the natural setting of the Berkshires.

Finding things to do outside of the classroom is a breeze, as many outdoor activities throughout the year offer a break from the books, including rafting on the Connecticut River, biking along Smith campus, hiking in the mountains, and window-shopping along Main Street. What sets this town apart from others is its energy. It may be a small town, but it's big on all things creative.

Campus Guide Captures Smith Architecture

Smith News Release:
The range of architectural achievements at Smith is captured in a new book, The Campus Guide: Smith College, a lustrous volume filled with colorful, glossy photographs of the Smith campus.

The guide, which is available through Amazon.com and soon at Grécourt Bookshop, is organized into five “walks” among 67 campus buildings, each illustrated and discussed architecturally and in historical college context. Walk One tours the corner of campus around College Hall, including Neilson Library, Wright and Hatfield halls, and the Brown Fine Arts Center. The walks proceed through campus, exploring the architecture of other notable buildings, such as Sage Hall, Burton Hall, the president’s house, Lyman Conservatory, Helen Hills Hills Chapel, and many others.

As noted in the book, a tour of Smith’s 100-plus buildings is like a literal review of architectural history for more than 150 years. The Campus Guide: Smith College seeks to capture the history of Smith’s aesthetic evolution in pictures and prose.

The Campus Guide: Smith College is one in a series of books that illustrate the architecture on notable American campuses, including Duke, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and Yale universities, and Vassar College. It was published this year by Princeton Architectural Press.

Study links negative expectations and women's performance

I just rediscovered this story that came through in early January when I was out of town. Have a great weekend!

A new study by Associate Professor of Psychology Maryjane Wraga documents, for the first time, how certain regions of women's brains react to positive and negative stereotypes. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, Wraga and fellow researchers Molly Helt '05 and Emily Jacobs '04 documented brain activity in 54 women between the ages of 18 and 34 after they had read a stereotypical message about women and then performed a spatial reasoning task. The task required them to view pictures of objects and describe what the objects would look like from different, imagined perspectives.

The group exposed to a negative stereotype made 6 percent more errors than the group exposed to a neutral message, and 14 percent more errors than the group exposed to a positive stereotype. "The results demonstrate the remarkable power of culture in determining performance," said Wraga, lead author on the study, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. For more information about the study see the study press release.

New Smith College Study

Don't Tell Her She Can't Succeed; Smith College Study Reveals How Stereotypical Messages Affect Women's Brains

NORTHAMPTON, Mass., Jan. 4 (AScribe Newswire) -- When told she will not succeed, a woman's brain can take on an emotional burden that inhibits her ability to succeed, according to a Smith College study that documents, for the first time, the brain regions affected by positive and negative stereotypes.

Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to document the brain activity in 54 women between the ages of 18 and 34, after they read a stereotypical message about women and then performed a spatial reasoning task. The task required them to view pictures of objects and describe what the objects would look like from different, imagined perspectives.

The group exposed to a negative stereotype made 6 percent more errors than the group exposed to a neutral message, and 14 percent more errors than the group exposed to a positive stereotype. No difference was found in the response time across groups.

Poor performance in the negative stereotype group corresponded to increased activity in brain regions associated with increased emotional load. By contrast, the better performance of women in the positive stereotype group was associated with increased activity in visual processing areas and complex short-term memory processing areas.

"The results demonstrate the remarkable power of culture in determining performance," said Maryjane Wraga, associate professor of psychology at Smith, and lead author on the study, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.

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'Sisters' don't want a future in coeducation

This article appears in sunday's Boston Globe and was written following a meeting a week ago at Smith about the future of women's colleges.

*****
'Sisters' don't want a future in coeducation
By April Simpson, Globe Staff | November 5, 2006

They were established in the 19th century, when women had fewer opportunities than men to earn a strong liberal arts education.

Now student leaders at the colleges still known as the "Seven Sisters," even though their number has dwindled to five, are joining forces to discuss the future of women's schools. Last weekend, they gathered in Northampton and agreed that they had an obligation to maintain the traditions upon which their institutions were founded.

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Smithie Fulbrights Everywhere

This year Smith was the #1 top producing bachelor's institution for 2005 Fulbright Scholars. Smith boasts the highest number of U.S. Fulbright Scholars this year with a total 16 awards. Even better news is that the class of 1999's own Cassie Hays was among this year's scholars. Congrats Cassie and congrats to Smith!

The school listings are located here in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Smith and the college rankings...

The rankings are out...

US News & World Report
#19 among the Best Liberal Arts Colleges

Printon Review Best 361 College Ranking
#1 for Best Dorms
#15 for Best Acceptance of GLBT Students
#19 for Best Overall Quality of Life