Valerie Smith

Valerie Smith’s groundbreaking contributions to the profession are scholarly and administrative. As a scholar of African-American literary and cultural studies she has published a dozen monographs, edited volumes, and anthologies of primary texts that have significantly shaped the field. At Princeton, Smith built African American studies from the ground up, hiring prestigious faculty and launching the curriculum and gaining department status. Smith was the first African American woman to become Dean of the College at Princeton and President of Swarthmore College. A prizewinning teacher and distinguished scholar, she has now become an important spokesperson for the value of the humanities on the national and international stage. Under her leadership, Swarthmore received a $100,000 Mellon grant for the Arts and Humanities.