Valerie Smith
| Valerie Smith | |
|---|---|
| 15th President of Swarthmore College | |
|
Assumed office July 1, 2015 |
|
| Preceded by | Rebecca Chopp |
| 21st Dean of Princeton University | |
|
In office July 1, 2011 – June 1, 2015 |
|
| Preceded by | Nancy Weiss Malkiel |
| Succeeded by | Jill Dolan |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
February 19, 1956 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Residence | Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Alma mater |
Bates College University of Virginia |
| Occupation | U.S. administrator, academic, and professor |
| Website | Office of the President of Swarthmore College |
Valerie "Val" 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, in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, she is a graduate of Bates College and the University of Virginia. She was a professor at Princeton University from 1980 to 1989, leaving after a nationally-publicized internal dispute to the University of California, Los Angeles where she taught until 2000. Smith was appointed the director of Princeton's African American studies program convincing her to return to the university in 2001. From 2006 to 2009, Smith was the founding director Princeton's interdisciplinary Center for African American Studies. In July 2011, the university's president appointed Smith the Dean of the College, tasked with "Princeton's undergraduate curriculum, residential college system, and admission and financial aid offices." While at the university as dean, she 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.
She left Princeton after a 23-tenure on their faculty to assume the presidency of Swarthmore College in July 2015; she was inaugurated in October. As president she increased the college's endowment to its 2016 market value of $1.85 billion and started the $450 million fundraising campaign called "Changing Lives, Changing the World" on April 6, 2017.
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