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by HEIDI BROWN, June 27, 2009
The short answer: Teach her to love math.

Women hold half of the investable wealth in the U.S. and account for 43% of all Americans who have a net worth of $1.5 million or more. Yet only 10% of asset managers are female, says a new report from the National Council for Research on Women.

Recent studies show that, as with other areas of business, women make investment decisions differently from men. They consider contradictory information and study company fundamentals more carefully before investing. Over the long term, funds run by women, who tend to be more risk-averse in general, outperform those of men. The Hedge Fund Research Diversity Index, for example, which has 50% female managers, returned an annual average 8.21% since 2003, while the broader index returned 5.98%.

This Sesame Street show was aired 4/1/09. Smith College School for Social Work hosted a special screening and discussion on 7/27/09

Join John Mayer, Queen Latifah and your Sesame Street friends for "Coming Home: Military Families Cope with Change." This primetime family television special tells the stories of military families coping with the challenges of combat-related injuries—both visible and invisible. "Coming Home," aired on April 1st on PBS, exploring the different ways these heroic families who are coming together to find a "new normal."

With help from Elmo and Rosita, "Coming Home" gives a voice to young children as they play a central role in their families' adjustment process. The special encourages them to ask questions, talk about how they feel, and be what they are — kids. Queen Latifah hosts, meeting real families dealing with combat-related injuries including the loss of a leg, traumatic brain injury and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Farah Pandith
(Smith '90)

Bureau of Public Affairs » Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
June 26, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has asked Farah Pandith to head the new Office of the United States Special Representative to Muslim Communities. Special Representative Farah Pandith and her staff (S/SRMC) will be responsible for executing the Administration’s efforts to engage with Muslims around the world on a people-to-people and organizational level.

“I am pleased to announce the appointment of Farah Pandith to serve as Special Representative to Muslim Communities. Farah brings years of experience to the job, and she will play a leading role in our efforts to engage Muslims around the world,” Secretary Clinton said.

by Elizabeth Redden
June 25, 2009
About 700 colleges signed up for the new Post-9/11 GI Bill’s Yellow Ribbon Program, which allows colleges to enter into dollar-for-dollar matching agreements with the federal government to pay veterans' educational costs above those covered by the base GI Bill benefit (which varies by state and is tied to undergraduate, resident public university tuition rates). While the Department of Veterans Affairs has not yet released its final list of participating colleges, Keith Wilson, director of the VA’s education service, expects the 700 figure to stay pretty stable. “It’ll grow a little bit. I know we’ve still got some [cases] where we’re seeking clarification from the school, and a couple we need additional information from; the forms weren’t filled out completely. But it’s not going to change dramatically.”

It is important to remember that even colleges not participating the Yellow Ribbon program can be veteran-friendly, providing significant financial assistance and support services. No veteran should rule out a private college simply because it is not enrolled in the Yellow Ribbon program, without first contacting the institution for further information.

Courtney Sullivan
Smith '03

By Bella English, Globe Staff | June 20, 2009

Courtney Sullivan’s first novel, “Commencement’’ (Knopf), is garnering rave reviews, and she’s getting queries from Hollywood. The book centers on four women who were suitemates at Smith College and delves into the complex choices young women face today. Like one of her main characters, Sullivan, 27, grew up in an Irish-Catholic family in Milton, graduated from Smith, and moved to New York, where she is a researcher for columnist Bob Herbert of The New York Times. She’ll read from her novel tomorrow at 3 p.m. at the Concord Bookshop and Monday at Barnes & Noble in Braintree at 7 p.m.

June 19, 2009
By MARIA RECIO » McClatchy Newspapers

When Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, first met the three young children of fallen Marine Gunnery Sgt. John David Fry during a tearful Veterans Day tribute in Waco in 2007, he was haunted by their father's story.

With only a week left in his Iraq tour in 2006, Fry, 28, had volunteered to go on one last run to defuse bombs - and the last bomb killed him.

After another emotional meeting last March with the family at the dedication of the post office in Fry's honor in his hometown of Lorena, Texas, the lawmaker realized there was something else he needed to do: provide for the college education of the children of military heroes.

A City Team’s Struggle Shows Disparity in Girls’ Sports
By KATIE THOMAS
June 14, 2009
The Cougars of Middle School 61 had a basketball game in the Bronx, but a half-hour before tipoff, six girls and Coach Bryan Mariner were still inching through traffic in Brooklyn.

Smith College engineering program was designed specifically for women
By JEFFREY THOMAS, June 9, 2009
Washington — In 2006 and 2007, Ida Ngambeki of Uganda, Leonora Baddoo of Ghana, June Yeung, originally from Hong Kong, and Meghan Irving of New Hampshire volunteered a total of 1,658 hours to design a culvert for the restoration of the Weir Creek Salt Marsh in Dennis, Massachusetts. The project fulfilled a requirement in their education as engineers at Smith College, which 10 years ago created the first engineering program at an all-woman liberal arts college and the first specifically designed for women.

By Scott Jaschik | June 3, 2009

WASHINGTON -- While women are underrepresented on the science faculties of research universities, they are more likely than men to be interviewed for tenure-track jobs and to receive job offers, and if they are hired and stay, they are at least as likely as men to receive tenure. Those are the conclusions of a study requested by Congress and released Tuesday by the National Academies.

ScienceDaily (June 2, 2009) — For more than a century, the notion that females are innately less capable than males at doing mathematics, especially at the highest levels, has persisted in even the loftiest circles.

This was one of the primary reasons posited in 2005 by Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard University and current economic adviser to President Barack Obama, for the extreme scarcity of tenured women math professors in top-ranked research universities in the U.S.

Women's College Graduating Students and Alumnae Among Grant Recipients
May, 2009
Created in the aftermath of the Second World War, through the efforts of the late Senator J. William Fulbright (D-Arkansas, 1945-1974) and sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright Program is an international educational exchange program designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.

By Julia Levitt
May 29, 2009
In rural regions of the Himalayas, a new lightweight, low cost, portable solar cooker called the SolSource 3-in-1 is poised to transform the health and prosperity of entire villages. The device, which can replace the hazardous traditional biomass-burning stove as a means for cooking and heating the home, can also use its own waste thermal energy to generate enough electricity to light a home at night, charge cell phones and power other small devices.

May, 2009
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation (http://www.jkcf.org/) has announced its 2009 scholarship recipients. JKCF’s scholarship programs include:

College Scholarships – the recipients of the College Scholarships are drawn from the Foundation’s Young Scholars Program, and comprise high-achieving high-school seniors who have overcome economic adversity and other challenges to pursue their academic goals. The students will receive scholarships of up to $30,000 per year for four years. Awards are intended to cover a significant share of the student’s educational expenses – including tuition, living expenses, books and required fees – necessary to achieve a bachelor’s degree. Awards vary by individual, based on the cost of tuition as well as other grants or scholarships he or she may receive.

^ Chelsea Jaccard '03 in northern Iraq

May 2009

Chelsea Jaccard '03 double majored in politics and art at Converse. She was a three-year award-winning member of the Converse Model Arab League program and during her undergraduate years studied Arabic at the Arabic Language Institute of Fez in Morocco and through independent correspondence study at Converse. She continued her Arabic study during her masters degree program in International Peace and Conflict Resolution with a Middle East emphasis at American University in Washington, DC.

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, Op-Ed Columnist
BO, Sierra Leone
On this trip through West Africa with my “win-a-trip” contest winner, I was reminded of one of the grimmest risks to human life here. Despite threats from warlords and exotic disease, it’s something even deadlier: motherhood.

By Abigail Trafford
May 12, 2009

This is the inevitable truth about the end of life for women. If we live a very long time like my stepmother, we will probably be single and dependent on other women at the finish line.

By RACHEL GAYNES*
Sunday, May 10, 2009
My boss texts me that I’m 45 minutes late, my grandfather floods my inbox with chain mail featuring jokes you have to be at least 40 to appreciate, and my mother calls to correct the spelling of my Facebook status. My life is an intricate Web and a mess of wires. This technology that keeps me connected is used by a wide age range, including Generation X, Generation Y and the one to which I personally subscribe and call fondly Generation I.

By Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Three years after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor left the Supreme Court, the impact of having only one woman on the nation's highest bench has become particularly clear to that woman — Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Her status as the court's lone woman was especially poignant during a recent case involving a 13-year-old girl who had been strip-searched by Arizona school officials looking for drugs. During oral arguments, some other justices minimized the girl's lasting humiliation, but Ginsburg stood out in her concern for the teenager.

By FRED CONTRADA, May 5, 2009
NORTHAMPTON - Smith College will host two women Iraqi educators next year as part of a national program to promote engineering among women in Iraq.

Iman Haider Mohammed, an assistant lecturer of engineering at Nahrain University, and Nafal Jamil A-Bawary, an assistant lecturer of engineering at the University of Duhok, will attend classes, collaborate on research with Smith engineering faculty and work with senior Design Clinic teams on their projects as they get a feel for how engineering is taught at Smith.

Linda Ellen Jones, Ph.D.
Rosemary Bradford Hewlett '40 Professor and
Director of the Picker Engineering Program

In 1999, responding to a national need for women engineers and a commitment to providing significant new opportunities for its graduates, the Smith College Board of Trustees voted to establish the nation's first engineering program at a women's college. From its inception, the Picker Engineering Program was designed to implement and refine newer methods of teaching engineering that address the needs of the 21st century.

All of us in the Picker Engineering Program have a common goal: educating engineers who address human needs through invention, resources and technology. We offer the degree in engineering science because, in the best Smith tradition, we believe that women engineers should think deeply and broadly about the effect their professional knowledge will have on the well-being of those whose trust they hold. Smith engineers hold the following core values:

^ click to enlarge

By LEAH BLATT GLASSER
May 1, 2009

A poster titled "Freshman Counseling" hangs on the wall in the least conspicuous corner of my office. I inherited it from my predecessor as she gleefully departed. The image, in dungeon-and-dragon style, is daunting.

By Craig Newmark*

The culture of the internet, at its best, involves people working together to make life better. Sometimes called cooperative capitalism or social entrepreneurship, it is practiced every day by millions of individuals and a small but growing number of for-profit companies. For years, Robin Chase, a co-founder of Zipcar, has run such a business, in which people share a community-based pool of vehicles. Customers use Zipcar, which rents cars by the day or hour (when public transportation won't quite do the job) and makes smart use of technology like GPS to connect people with autos and trucks that are parked near them.