QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER
MARCH 2022
I hope that all the members of our community are staying warm and healthy as we enter another challenging year. We had a few chances to get together in 2021, in-between Covid variants, and I miss those opportunities. I am looking forward to being able to connect again in person, with the coming Spring.
When I became President of the Smith College Club of New York, I committed to a personal goal: to make our club more inclusive and representative of the broader Smith community. I am excited to announce that in 2022, we plan to restart our “Young Alums/Young at Heart” initiative with the explicit objective of engaging our younger community members. Please reach out to me at PRESIDENTSCCNYC if you have ideas and are interested in getting involved!
As always, we welcome volunteers to serve on our committees. Feel free to contact me or the Club’s committee chairs if you are interested. I hope you will attend our Open Board meeting on April 12th, and look forward to seeing as many of you on Zoom or in person during 2022.
Lastly and most importantly, my heart and mind go out to the people of Ukraine. I find myself meditating on the words of Warsan Shire, “No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.” I am the daughter of immigrants who has worked closely with refugees. Whether it is Syria, Afghanistan, or Ukraine, those who have lost everything by the horrors of war are deserving of safety, peace and compassion.
- Zaineb Hamdan, President
THE ANNUAL BENEFIT
The Annual Scholarship Benefit on Tuesday, May 3, 2022 will feature Smith Alumna Gillian Sorensen '63. Gillian Sorensen has had a distinguished career with the United Nations where she served as Special Adviser for Public Policy, Assistant Secretary-General for External Relations, and National Advocate for the United Nations Foundation. Tickets will be on sale on March 24, 2022, and proceeds benefit the Smith Scholarship Fund, dedicated to providing critical financial aid to students from the Greater New York area. We look forward to what promises to be an extraordinary evening. ANNOUNCEMENTS
Due to an outage of our website caused by a third-party provider, we have moved! Our new website address is smithclubnyc.com.
Please update your bookmarks to this new address. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
SCCNYC is now adding recordings of previous Zoom events to the website.Our 2021 Centennial Celebration talk by Professor Carrie Baker on Gender Identity and Expression at Smith College can now be viewed, as well as, Writer/Composer Ellen Maddow, Director Paul Zimet, Professor Emeritus, Smith College Theatre Department, and Costume Designer Kiki Smith ’71, Chair, Smith College Department of Theatre, discussion of the Talking Band’s upcoming production of ‘Lemon Girls or Art for the Artless. Be sure to check out highlights of the 2021 Holiday party featuring a reading by Gale Eaton '69 of 'Ring out the Old, Ring in the New' and Joan Dilakian, '74, bringing to life the famed MMOA Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Creche.
Check out our most recent Affinity Group - Color Wheel Quilters This informal club will allow Smithie quilters and crafters to stay connected and share tips and resources through organized and impromptu meetings. Meetings will be via Zoom until the club starts in-person meetings again. Find out more or quick signup here.
Where can we meet?The SCCNYC is actively searching for a meeting space to accommodate monthly meetups and Affinity Groups. If you know of any appropriate spaces for a reasonable rent, know of an organisation willing to rent us space, or have other suggestions, please let us know here.
CLUB NEWS
Women's History Month celebrations underway!
Events carries on with almost exclusively virtual events this quarter, and the occasional out-of-doors social gathering. This month, look out for another great cooking class with Kate Sonders Solomon ’00, this one Julia Child themed, a lecture on Art of Africa by Mosa Molapo ’22 and our annual faculty lecture by Bozena Welborne, Assistant Professor of Government.
Look out for events as the are planned by visiting the Home page of the website.
This spring, the trajectory for Events is set to engage Club participants and guests in more interactive – and fun - zoom events, such as ‘Game Night,’ another walking tour of Central Park focusing on Seneca Village, and a series of drawing classes led by Lisa Jacobson ’81.
We greatly encourage anyone from the NYC Smith Community with an Event idea to bring it forward via email and we will work with you to nurture it and help make it happen. And, if you like, join us as a volunteer member of the Club’s Events Committee.
Great news! The Admissions Committee handled two and a half times as many interview requests as were received last year. The role of volunteer interviewers was crucial to our ability to handle this volume, and we are grateful for their enthusiastic support.
We also learned that 26 NYC students were admitted to Smith College under the Early Decision I (EDI) program! These outstanding students come from all five NYC boroughs. We are looking forward to seeing the results of the second round of early decision acceptances (EDII) later this month. The committee sends a congratulatory message from the club to each new Smithie!
Membership is happy to announce it’s newly adjusted "in-person meeting status" as a result of low levels of Omicron transmission in New York City. Hence, Membership will be gearing back up with an in-person event at Le Pain Quotidien in the coming weeks. Dates are being considered. Other Membership events are in the Works including Happy Hours, Brunches and a Trivia night. Stay tuned for more details.
We are in the process of building our nominating committee, headed by our newest board member, Trish Tidwell '73. Want to connect to other NYC Smith alums? The Smith College Club of New York is looking for volunteers. Stay tuned for more details and the date for the upcoming open board meeting or contact NOMINATING.
Last year saw changes to the SCCNYC website menu with the addition of new pages and the creation of Affinity Groups. 2022 efforts focus on giving the community a chance to view recordings of prior Zoom lectures and events, which can be view under the EVENTS menu at RECORDED EVENTS. If you would like to become involved in supporting the club's technology and communications efforts email us here.
REFLECTIONS
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