Valerie Smith (academic)

Valerie Smith (born February 19, 1956) is an American academic administrator, professor, and scholar of African-American literature and culture. She is the 15th and current president of Swarthmore College.

Smith is a graduate of Bates College and the University of Virginia. She taught at Princeton University from 1980 to 1989 and at University of California, Los Angeles from 1989 to 2000. In 2000, Smith returned to Princeton as the Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature and director of the program in African American Studies. From 2006 to 2009, Smith served as the founding director of Princeton's interdisciplinary Center for African American Studies. In July 2011, Princeton’s then-president Shirley Tilghman appointed Smith Dean of the College at Princeton. The dean is the senior administrator responsible for all aspects of Princeton’s undergraduate academic program. As dean, Smith removed numerical targets for the university's grading policy, expanded socioeconomic diversity, created an international residential college exchange program, and created the Office of Undergraduate Research of Princeton University.

Smith left Princeton after a 24-year tenure to assume the presidency of Swarthmore College in July 2015; she was inaugurated in October. Among her accomplishments as president, Smith has overseen an increase in the College's endowment to $2.72 billion as of the end of fiscal year 2023. She led the largest comprehensive fundraising campaign in the College’s history, titled Changing Lives, Changing the World. The campaign raised more than $440 million, including more than $110 million for financial aid. Smith has also prioritized Swarthmore’s commitment to environmental sustainability. In 2021, the Board of Managers approved an energy plan, now known as To Zero By Thirty-Five, that will enable Swarthmore to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035.

Early life and education
Valerie Smith was born in Manhattan, New York and grew up in Brooklyn with her parents and two younger siblings. Her father, W. Reeves Smith, was a biology professor at Long Island University, and her mother, Josephine Smith, was a public school teacher. Both parents hailed from Charleston, South Carolina and moved to New York looking for greater opportunities. "That example of openness to adventure inspired me and gave me a willingness to take chances," Smith said in a 2017 New York Times interview. Smith has also talked about the influence her upbringing has had on her life: "I grew up in a family that really valued knowledge, but also, growing up in Brooklyn, I grew up in an environment where I enjoyed the cultural riches of an urban environment."

Smith attended Midwood High School in Brooklyn. At age 15, she enrolled at Bates College, where she majored in English literature and graduated Phi Beta Kappa, cum laude in 1975. She describes her experience at Bates as "nurturing." During her time there, she studied abroad in England at Oxford University, which she describes as one of the most meaningful experiences of her life. "... it turned me into a traveler. It gave me a high degree of confidence in my ability to adjust to completely different cultures." Smith completed her graduate work at the University of Virginia, where she earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees.

Early academic career
Smith began her teaching career at Princeton University in 1980, holding appointments in English and African-American Studies. In 1989, Smith joined the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles, as a tenured associate professor of English; she was promoted to full professor in 1994. During her time at UCLA, she served as vice chair for Graduate Studies in the English department, chair of the Interdepartmental Program in African American Studies and co-director of the Cultural Studies in the African Diaspora Project.

Princeton University
Smith returned to Princeton in 2001 as the Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature and Professor of English and African American Studies. She was subsequently asked to serve as the director of the university’s Program in African American Studies, which, in 2006, became the Center for African American Studies (CAAS). During her tenure as CAAS director, Smith created a distinguished lecture series, a postdoctoral fellows program, and a distinguished visiting scholars program. She is credited with helping evolve the CAAS from an interdisciplinary program into a dynamic and top ranked center for teaching and research about race. In 2004, Smith delivered the keynote address for Princeton’s observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

In 2010, Smith was named Princeton's dean of the college, the University's undergraduate program. She assumed the position in July of 2011. As dean, Smith oversaw all aspects of Princeton's undergraduate program, including the curriculum, academic advising, academic regulations, the offices of Admission and Undergraduate Financial Aid, the Residential Colleges, and more. Smith removed numerical targets for the university's grading policy, expanded socioeconomic diversity, created an international residential college exchange program, and created the Office of Undergraduate Research of Princeton University.

On February 21, 2015, Swarthmore College announced that Smith was selected as the college's 15th president, effective July 1, 2015. She remained at Princeton until June of that year.

Swarthmore College
In February 2015, the Board of Managers of Swarthmore College unanimously approved Smith as the next president of the college and announced that she would begin her tenure on July 1, 2015. She would also hold appointments in English Literature and Black Studies.

Inauguration
On October 3, 2015, Smith was inaugurated as the 15th President of Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Her position as the first African-American president drew many of the speakers to discuss the growing racial divides in the U.S. and academia. The president of Brown University at the time, Ruth Simmons, noted that "the long shadow of racial and gender bias still lingers in this society and will influence some of what she will experience on a day to day basis." To a crowd of 1,200, Smith addressed her inauguration by stating:"How does greater diversity make us better? Our ability to discover and communicate new knowledge; to find solutions to intractable problems in science and technology, public policy, and the social sciences; and to analyze, contextualize, and express the highest ideals of the human spirit in the humanities and the arts – these are all enhanced when we earnestly engage with others whose perspectives and experiences differ from our own."

Student life
In late October 2015, Smith adapted the "Dinner with 12 Strangers" program (originally developed at UCLA), which, according to the Swarthmore Daily, "brings members of the campus community together for a meal at the Courtney Smith House." In March 2016, she penned an opinion editorial in the college's newspaper regarding a Letter to the Editor about members of the board of trustees having a conflict of interest in divesting in fossil fuels. The original article requested that "manager[s] having a duality or possible financial conflict of interest on any matter should not use his or her personal influence in the matter and, if a vote were to be taken, should not vote thereon nor be counted even in determining the quorum for the meeting." Smith, along with the Chair of the Managers of Swarthmore College, Tom Spock, issued that "the assertions in the piece [were] unfounded and present[ed] a distorted picture," adding "the administration are united in their deep commitment to climate action." Smith concluded the letter by stating that the college will not divest, citing the "Board's responsibility to ensure that both current and future generations of Swarthmore students have access to the financial resources," indicating the importance of dependent investments in their long-term financial goals.

Endowment and fundraising
Swarthmore College has one of the largest endowments in the country. Under Smith's leadership, the endowment has grown significantly from $1.747 billion in 2016 to $2.72 billion at the end of the 2023 fiscal year. In fiscal year 2023, the endowment distributed $111.2 million to support Swarthmore's operating budget, which equated to 55.0% of College operating revenue. The strength of the endowment allows Swarthmore to, among other things, practice need-blind admission; the college admits students without regard to their financial need and provides loan-free financial aid that meets 100% of a student's demonstrated need.

On April 6, 2017, Smith announced the "Changing Lives, Changing the World" fundraising campaign intending to raise $450 million.

Academic outreach
In September 2016, she was profiled by Washington Monthly, where she commented on the minority incarceration debate by rhetorically asking: "How many of the men who are in this facility, or in facilities like it across the country, are there because the educational system failed to engage them intellectually, made them feel unintelligent, less than human?"

On February 17, 2017, Smith was interviewed by Adam Bryant for The New York Times where she outlined the college's market position, incoming students, and her leadership philosophy: "creating an environment within my leadership team where people feel that they can trust each other and feel confident sharing their ideas."

Personal life
Smith lives in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. She is an emeritus member of the Bates College Board of Trustees, having served from 2004-15. Her current board service includes the American Council on Education, the National Museum of the American Indian, PSEG, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Bogliasco Foundation.

Awards and honors
Smith has held numerous fellowships, including from the Alphonse G. Fletcher Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2009, Smith won Princeton's President's Award for Distinguished Teaching. In 2016, she received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Hong Kong Baptist University and delivered a distinguished lecture on "Liberal Arts Education: Challenges and Prospects." She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 2024, Smith was awarded the Benjamin Chandler Legacy Award from the Benjamin Mays Black Alumni Association of Bates College and named an Honorary Fellow for life of Harris Manchester College, Oxford University.

She has served on the editorial boards of Women's Studies Quarterly, Criticism, and African American Review.

Selected works
Smith is the author of three monographs: Self-Discovery and Authority in Afro-American Narrative (1987), Not Just Race, Not Just Gender: Black Feminist Readings (1998), and Toni Morrison: Writing the Moral Imagination (2012). She is the editor or co-editor of seven books, and the author of over forty articles.