User:Epool042/Joan Smith (sociology)

Joan Mary Smith Welch (May 6, 1936 – September 10, 2004), known professionally as Joan Smith, was an American feminist author and scholar in the field of socio-economics. Smith's primary research held specialized interest in economic processes and labor force issues, and was best known for her academic contributions addressing domestic and international equity concerns. She was dean and educator at the University of Vermont until the time of her death.

Personal Life
Joan Mary Heaney was born in 1936 to parents Hugh Heaney and Alice Heaney. She grew up alongside her two brothers, Patrick and Robert, in a working-class Irish neighborhood in Chicago, IL. Smith married Peter F. Welch, American attorney and politician, in 1976. Welch and Smith had five children together: Beth, Mary, William, John and Michael. Smith went back to school after experiencing a political awakening during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Shortly after 1995 Smith was diagnosed with Leiomyosarcoma, and underwent treatment until her death on September 10, 2004.

Education
Smith graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Roosevelt University in 1967. She attended graduate school at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and received a Masters Degree of Sociology in 1969. In 1970, she went back to school to earn a PhD in sociology from New York University.

Career
Smith had a long and successful career in academia, which began after joining the faculty of Dartmouth College at the conclusion of her post-doctoral degree. From 1979 to 1990 Smith taught sociology at Queens College where she formed a friendship with peer contemporary sociologist, Immanuel Wallerstein, whom she collaborated and co-authored a book with in 1984.

Smith was offered the position as the first director of the Women's Studies Department at the University of Vermont in 1990. In 1995 she was appointed Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Vermont, and in 1996 she was the first women to be appointed Dean within the college's institutional history. . She remained in the position until her death.

Smith was recognized for implementing and facilitating the college's first diversity and equity programming with the ALANA Coalition; developing honors programs for undergraduate students; advocating for equitable compensation and merit among her faculty